


By the Morning

by ReceiverofWisdom



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Body Horror, F/F, Horror, Human AU, I might add more chapters it depends on feedback, Jaspidot - Freeform, Mental Illness, Schizophrenia, Tumblr Prompt, dead space - Freeform, jasper and peridot for sure but the other pairings Im not sure yet, sci fi space adventure woo, tagging them anyhow, this space cruise will need fuel, this was more of a try than anything, this will probably have gore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-04-20 10:51:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4784630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReceiverofWisdom/pseuds/ReceiverofWisdom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"In the darkness I will meet my creators, and our minds are troubled by the emptiness."</p><p>Humanity speculates their origins in the known universe. Jasper's escort mission becomes significantly more complicated when an artifact is mistakenly uncovered during Planet Cracking. Peridot is thrown into delirium over misguided warnings from the faces of the deceased. Lapis gets pulled into much more than she signed up for.</p><p>Allusions to the answer are enough to drive entire colonies mad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Solution

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you know nothing about Dead Space, you're in the right place, because I'll explain things as I go and the characters are clueless too.

The shapeless void calls to her.  
  
Beyond the bathyscaphe-like vehicle, a number of disembodied voices, for as well as she can make them out, request the technician’s evacuation from the underwater structure; or their entrance into it. The heavy, grating rasp of each tone fused into the next sends tremors down Peridot’s spine.  
  
For fleeting moments, something with a vividly pale, stretched eye veers out from the darkness and towards the hand that is pressed against several centimeters of glass, only to dart away before Peridot can get a proper look at it.  
  
“Earth to Peridot,” a burly tone remarks over the interior comm system, without patience or humour.  
  
“We’re not _on_ Earth.” The Technician replies in nonchalance, snapped from her reverie and hoping that no vocal tremor came through in her response. The mass of dark forms she had once thought to be taking shape before her eyes were as seamless as the rest of the endless dark.  
  
The voices plagued her for days. The masses of vaguely human forms floating in the watery abyss beyond the scope of the bathyscaphe were new.  
  
She turns her head towards the hard-light screen and adjusts herself back into an appropriate position within the seat of the cockpit.  
  
Through the veil of static interference, Peridot can make out the slightly vague features of her co-worker on the transmitting monitor. Jasper looks on; unimpressed and, judging from the shadows beneath her eyes, utterly exhausted.  
  
“We’re miles beneath the base. I need you to **_focus_**.” Ever berating. Ever persistent.  
  
Peridot, under her own amount of impressive stress, does not bother to hide the roll of her eyes, even to the assertive commander.  
  
“I _am_ focused. Just because I look away from the screen for a few moments out of several hours of attention doesn’t mean I’m inattentive.”  
  
“You’ve fallen behind.” Jasper urges lowly. Her piercing eyes flit away for a moment towards something off-screen. She seems disturbed and annoyed enough for Peridot to gather that she is not the Escort’s only concern.  
  
“Like I said –.” Before the Technician can finish the retort, she jolts forward _hard_ in her seat. Leather straps that secure across the Tech’s front are the only things preventing her entire weight from flying right into all of the fragile equipment. The console beneath her quaking finger tips shudders, and the entirety of the submerged vehicle darkens for several moments. When the power returns, a bewildered Jasper is shouting broken, unintelligible questions through plenty of interference. For several moments she is too disoriented to try and correct the signal.  
  
Before she can even attempt a correction however, the signal clears immediately, and comes back clearer than it once had been.  
  
Jasper almost looks concerned.  
  
She seems to have interference on her end as well, because seconds after the signal becomes uncorrupted, that borderline concern flashes into anger.  
  
“What did you **do**?” She yells into the mic of the communication device.  
  
On Peridot’s receiving end, her auditory output screeches with the pitch of Jasper’s voice, and it causes her already persistent migraine to skyrocket, and thus slaps whatever patience she had tamed across the face.  
  
Peridot responds by yelling right back. Off record, of course. She turns off the visual and auditory recording, because this series of events is something she deems non-mandatory to include in the report, and she will be responsible for clipping and standardizing the imagery later on to present to the Lead of the Project anyhow. It is simply less that she will need to cut out. And less for anyone to see if they happen to want a raw copy. Peridot doubts the record has recovered from the momentary lapse of power anyhow, and the thought only surfaces to quell her anxious conscience.  
  
“It’s not like I purposely drove into the nearest slab of compressed rock! These lights have a certain radius and… and you’re _gone_ from the circumference of my radar.”  
  
“Because you lagged behind,” Jasper accuses, quite lamely, and leans closer towards the console to fiddle with the settings.  
  
“We’re only allowed a certain speed.”  
  
Jasper slams a fist down.  
  
Despite her limited range of view of the Escort, Peridot could see the jolt of a muscled arm, and hear the distinct yelp of a fragile, metallic console as it was punished with her strength for the Technician’s insolent word. The half-Japanese female leans back in her seat and crosses her arms firmly across her chest, trying with much difficulty to keep her expression neutral.  
  
After periods of silence, Jasper sighs on the other line and leans back as well, tapping in what Peridot assumes to be a set of coordinates. She times the keys with the common amount of slots coordinates might possess in order to make the assumption.  
  
“I’ll turn around for you and assess damage. _You’re_ writing up the report for it, though.”  
  
\-----  
  
In order to place less strain on her oxygen reserves, Jasper had temporarily cut their communications.  
  
Peridot sits in the silence that stretches on. The darkness beyond seems to be encroaching upon her steadily, made worse by the fact that she dimmed all external and internal lights to improve her own reserves of power. Miles upon miles below the surface of an ocean that took up more than half of a planet’s face was not a favourable place to be when one ran out of oxygen or power. Communications with the base were faulty, at best. Especially as close to the floor as they were.  
  
The returning whispers and inclining tones only serve to make her feel all the more trapped. She places her hands over her ears and finds that it makes very little difference.  
  
The cacophony of voices, within the short passage of time, becomes more coherent in their unknown purpose. It becomes harder to drive them out.  
  
One unified tone stands out, and almost immediately, the rest die down into a dull simmer of suspicious murmurs.  
  
It croaks out a distinct greeting.  
  
Peridot nearly jumps right out of her seat, for it sounds as if it is right beside her ear. Again, the leather straps that secure her into it prevent the reactionary mistake from being played out. It is grounding, and the technician seeks solace in gripping the arm of the seat tightly. She snaps her head in the direction so hastily, pain shoots up the side of her neck. What welcomes her causes her to grow so cold, the smarting injury is all too rapidly forgotten. In the soft reflection of the glass, her image visibly pales.  
  
It is the leering-eyed sea creature that had once swiveled and shied from her hand. She had mistaken it as something akin to an Angler fish back in Earth’s depths. It greets her with a broad, misshapen grin, and Peridot wonders how she had ever mistaken it for a simple fish.  
  
It is distinctly humanoid, albeit rotten, with bits of flesh chunked out from its neck and the bottom part of its face in grey, papery rivets. The sight causes Peridot’s steel stomach to lurch.  
  
Four prongs of teeth jut out from a smoothly hooked jaw, lined by segments of spaced, significantly smaller incisors. The research-drawn side of Peridot notes, purposely, how well-suited they are to shred muscle and tissue alike.  
  
It waves a flap of an arm. Closer to the dim lights of the submersible, Peridot can make out the thin connection of sickly skin that merges the creature’s leg and arm, splaying them out into a fork of limbs joined by the thigh and upper arm.  
  
In her odd delirium, Peridot half-heartedly waves back at it.  
  
That seems to please it.  
  
**_M_** _ay I come in?_  
  
It’s a ludicrous but polite question. Peridot swivels her head back towards the hatch. It was the only entrance, and the only exit out of the submersible. There is no way she is opening that.  
  
Despite the several centimeters of impact-resistant glass standing between herself and the creature outside, however, she feels not the slightest impression of safety when delivering her answer with a shake of her head.  
  
It looks down-stricken, not necessarily hostile or angry. It’s a relief.  
  
**_I_** _have something to tell you._  
  
“Why can’t you tell me right now? I can hear you just fine.”  
  
**_I_** _t’s a secret. It is very important._  
  
Peridot looks around herself towards the dead hard-light communications monitor, and over the creature’s broken shoulder into the blackness beyond. “There’s no one else here.”  
  
It frowns as best as it can with no lips, pounding a fleshy palm against the glass. The eye, the one that is not entirely a vacant white, visibly trembles its milky iris as it searches her face. It calms itself easily enough after clenching its jaw several times.  
  
**_Y_** _ou’re not safe right now. I need to come in and tell you. If you open the hatch I can stop the water from coming in. We will talk._  
  
It seems… Reasonable to Peridot. Quite reasonable. The more she thinks on it, the more she trusts the visage beyond the glass.  
  
The thing grins warmly, gesturing up towards the hatch.  
  
It would be just a second for it to get in, right? A little water would not hurt.  
  
The voice utters its approval and many heart-warming notions of encouragement.  
  
Peridot feels good, for once in a long time, and quite confident about it. Her head is pitching a fit, and it feels as if her throbbing brain might exceed the mass of her skull, but something tells her that if she opens the hatch and allows the polite guest inside, all of that will be stopped.  
  
She unhooks herself from the seat with shaken hands, and gets up, stumbling her way towards the back of the bathyscaphe.  
  
**_H_** _urry. Hurry. Hurry._  
  
Her metallic hands reach the ladder. The entire bathyscaphe shudders hard and lurches a little to one side. Something else had collided with it and Peridot, for the life of her, cannot figure out what. She doesn’t have time to.  
  
**_M_** _ove. Now. You must get it open right now. You will be too late._  
  
She scrambles up the ladder, and sets her hands on the dial pad. It recognizes her touch and frees the wheeled handle, enabling her to turn it and unlock the hatch. Thousands of pounds of water pressure await her on the other side. But it’s all right. The guest will keep the entrance of the water minimal. She has to hear the secret. The seal unlocks and Peridot pulls back hard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I already have a bit of the next part written up. I think I would enjoy writing another part to this, or several. It depends on feedback.


	2. Breath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right so I'm going to start into this and actually make a story out of it. It'll get better as I get more comfortable with it.

Instead of water, bright fluorescent lights drown her senses. She cringes hard, and shields her eyes with an arm. A casting shadow relieves her, and when she peeks beneath her arm, the progressively confused and exasperated expression of the Commander is what meets her.  
  
“Did it send you to tell me the secret?” She blurts, out of uncharacteristic desperation.  
  
Jasper twists her expression slightly as she peers over the edge of where her submersible’s exit connects with Peridot’s entrance. She places her feet over the edge, and roughly prods Peridot in the shoulder with a boot.  
  
“Did what? You’re taking up the ladder. Get down.”  
  
Peridot scowls, but complies, working her way down from the ladder as the Commander follows after her. She keeps her eyes on the floor as she descends.  
  
As she descends, what she had just attempted begins to make less and less sense to her. What had she been _thinking_? If Jasper had not connected both of their vehicles before she had opened it, unlocking the exit would have been the all-time stupidest mistake she had ever made. And the last.  
  
As soon as her feet connect to the floor, she rushes back over to the side of the glass where she had last seen the creature. The vacant void stares back at her. Jasper’s heavy footsteps come up behind her, tugging her away from the glass.  
  
“You look really, really pale. Sit down for a minute before the report includes an injury under my supervision.” She secures a grip on the Technician’s shoulder, pulling her towards the opposite side of the room. Jasper gives a slight shove, and has the Tech sit down on the cool, relieving floor.  
  
Part of Peridot realizes the blunt treatment is simply Jasper, and that she does not necessarily mean anything by it. Another part of her simply hates how often she is jostled and knocked around like an object. She bites at her lower lip when a particularly stabbing sense of pain shoots through her skull, and her legs cripple. Forget the rough treatment. Jasper picked an excellent time to seat her on the floor. She leans her head back against the glass, and sucks in a breath.  
  
Jasper stares, unabashed, before she is waved away by the Tech.  
  
“I’m _fine_. I’m just not used to being this deep. Check on the condition of my bathyscaphe. I’m sure you got a better look at it from the outside.”  
  
“I think they’re going to have to send salvage drones. Or a recovery mechanic, if they want to avoid flooding the interior.” Jasper stalks her way over to the console, taking out a Data Assistant. She plugs in her assessment of the outside, and then proceeds to scan the immediate interior, in the direction of the impact zone.  
  
“The Authority won’t be pleased. How did you manage this? Seriously, this sort of mistake isn’t like you. _I’m_ usually the one fucking up the equipment.” It’s a cruder attempt at a jest.  
  
Peridot is not pleased. She diverts the topic. “Did you see anything else out there?”  
  
Jasper shoots her a look as she wraps up her scans. As per protocol, she creates a back-up file, and then proceeds to extract data from the console. Peridot is, in the least, intrigued to observe from her end of the room. Just a few weeks previous, Jasper had been hardly able to send an email through a Data Assistant without the Tech’s begrudging assistance.  
  
They grow up so fast.  
  
“Like what?”  
  
“I don’t know. Something slightly human-looking maybe?”  
  
“Slightly human-looking? That’s just… Yeah… Your grandmother dropped by my window for a minute to say hi.”  
  
“That’s _seriously_ rude. And unprofessional.”  
  
“I’ve never even seen your grandmother. Stop taking things so personally. If you’re going to ask a weird question you’re going to get a weird answer.”  
  
Peridot grows silent. The incessant pounding of her head is doing nothing for her mood, and responding to her Escort would do even less. The cool glass behind her grows warmer and warmer. The entire room is stifling, and she feels the urge to escape. _Something_ has to ease the pain.   
  
While Jasper crouches down and rummages beneath the vehicle’s console, Peridot shakily braces herself against the glass, and tries to work her way in the direction of the ladder once more. The pain becomes crippling. She looks up the ladder towards the top where the interior of Jasper’s bathyscaphe is in clear view, and the sting of her skull becomes so great, Peridot half-collapses against the rungs. She feels as if she is being punished for her inability to have opened it sooner. What possessed her to even try?  
  
Before her mind can rapid-fire itself into a spiral of internal debate and existential interrogation, a large and muscled arm wraps itself securely around her midriff, hugging her into an odd mix of a soft yet burly frame. It’s too warm. She tries to squirm away in her disorientation.  
  
Jasper looks both pained and a slighter bit offended as the Tech shoves out of her supporting grasp.  
  
Peridot feels a little bad, but not too much, because she swears that her cerebral matter is melting out of her ears as Jasper speaks, causing her to sound very far away.  
  
Had the room dimmed? Or is that a lack of oxygen to her brain?  
  
Jasper’s slighted expression remains, but she is gripping at her own head, and Peridot is privy to the hint that maybe she is experiencing the same mental assault. But the brute of a woman powers through it. Like she does everything else.  
  
Peridot opens her mouth with an exceedingly rare intent to reassure the Commander, only to be cut off by said individual shoving a knee into her rear.  She jolts forward at the impact, nearly connecting her forehead with the bars of the ladder. The desire to sympathize dies immediately and Peridot considers turning around and getting a good handful of the long white locks in order to _shake some sense into her_ but when she even turns her head back to glare, the room swims with her gaze.  
  
She is drowning in her own way. The pressure of the ocean is not needed.  
  
The unkind action of nudging her coworker forward seems to go unnoted by the perpetrator, who has her unpleasant gaze fixed to the destination at the top. “Are you going to just stare at it or are you going to try to climb up? I’ll be right behind you.” Jasper finally looks down, and gets a fair assessment of the state of her associate. The unfocused murder eyes are all the context she needs. There is a moment of pause where she shuffles her massive frame, and reaches forward again, pulling Peridot towards her.  
  
The Technician’s head feels heavy and her stomach is competing for a gymnastic medal in the Olympics. Passing out would be favourable at that point. Jasper tucks her up over her shoulder with relative care, like a weighted duffel of essential belongings, and begins to boldly scale the ladder with one hand.  
  
It is a daring process. When they reach the top and Jasper squeezes both of their masses through the entrance, her headache simultaneously dissipates. It’s an incredible respite.   
  
Peridot clings to the larger form of the other, and heaves out a breath of staggered relief. There is, similarly, a dramatic change of temperature. She feels chilled to her core and the warmth of the Commander is her solace.  
  
Only when Jasper tugs at her Spine-Mounted Display does she become conscious of her grip, and loosens it, being set down on the floor. Jasper lingers close however, in case the Technician loses her balance and collapses. It’s rather considerate, and since Peridot’s vision is not done swimming, she appreciatively keeps one hand firmly locked on Jasper’s shoulder.  
  
On the Spine-Mounted Display of her bare-minimum suit set up, the segmented bar that runs along her spine and integrates into her nervous system glows a pale blue, signifying that her general state of health is exceptional and above the seventy-five percent mark. But she does not _feel_ exceptional.  
  
Jasper stays long enough to roam her eyes down the display, before she forcibly removes herself from the Technician.   
  
Peridot grapples for the shelves as a result of the abandonment, and attempts to follow the path of the Commander with her eyes.  
  
Jasper is across the room by the time she is able to focus. Gradually, she is able to stave off her sickness.  
  
She plugs in the drive and downloads it to her own console, backing up her own data as well. All of it is stored in the mainframe and encrypted.  
  
Peridot can struggle through her mind’s haze well enough to catch sight of Jasper taking out an _unauthorized_ drive to copy all of the information once more, before storing the memory device somewhere in her skin-tight armoured suit.  
  
“What was that for?”  
  
“What?” Jasper has the decency to look a little startled, her hand shooting down from the area she stored the drive in. She tries to cover up her actions by producing two of the authorized drives in the hand, holding them up. Her tone hitches defensive, but also carefully maintained. “I’m replicating the data that was in your sub.”  
  
The Technician squints, but says nothing further on the subject. She stoops, and inches her way across the white floor, bracing a hand against the hatch in order to close it. “I forgot to turn off my oxygen reserves.”  
  
“I’m merging them, since you’ll be stealing from mine for the duration that we’re down here.”  
  
“Excuse me. Let me just hold my breath,” the Tech bites back, slamming the hatch closed and churning it. Sealed, she stands to check the status monitor of the vehicle. “We’ll have to cut this trip short, anyway. Did you get this refueled before you prepped it for decent?”  
  
The non-committal grunt from Jasper answers the question well enough.  
  
She’s better now, significantly. So she meanders her way back towards the cockpit, seating herself by the control console.  
  
Jasper glances at her, then double-takes. “What do you think you’re doing?”  
  
“Driving?”  
  
Incredulous, Jasper forfeits trying to gain a connection with the surface, and grabs the Technician by the back of her RIG suit. “Oohono, I don’t think so. If you hit anything else down here, we’re fucked. All I’m getting from the surface is static.”  
  
Peridot slaps the other’s hand away, baring her teeth, having the audacity to look absolutely peeved. She has never enjoyed being belittled over simple mistakes in a profession she excelled in. Especially when Jasper’s mistakes far exceeded her own in every classification of their duties.  
  
Regardless, she trudges her way over to the other seat, one of two total, behind Jasper’s. It has a cup holder in the arm. She thinks she might survive the downgrade.  
  
Jasper detaches from Peridot’s abandoned bathyscaphe, notes the coordinates of its position to send to the recovery team, and presses on through their original route.  
  
Peridot hopes the damages won’t be deducted from her next paycheck.  
  
\-----  
  
**_I_** _still have the secret. They haven’t taken it._  
  
Peridot has the dignity not to fly right out of her seat and grappled for the one in front of her.  
  
When she _very_ slowly turns her head in the direction of the familiar voice, it is beside her, grinning and slouching over with one mutilated hand resting on the back of her seat as it leans towards her. Its breath is something hellish on its own.   
  
Peridot lowers her voice significantly, conscious of the Commander in the seat in front of her. She couldn’t imagine what would happen if she knew about the creature having, somehow, infiltrated the bathyscaphe.  
  
“How did you get in?”  
  
**_Y_** _ou opened the hatch. You let me in. For the secret._  
  
A million questions struck Peridot. She stuck to the most predominant one, leaning closer towards the rotting thing despite every internal instinct telling her to do the opposite.   
  
“What’s the secret,” she whispers. Jasper glances back. She freezes.  
  
Oddly enough, Jasper regains focus on where she’s going, as if she hardly noticed the corpse hunched over beside the Engineer.  
  
**_C_** _onvergence_ , the cold breath seethes.  
  
“Convergence?” She asks aloud.  
  
Jasper looks over her shoulder again, and raises her eyebrow. “What?”  
  
Peridot looks to the grinning creature for clarity as to whether or not she should say anything. But the term _secret_ implies that the information should be held personal. Peridot shrugs her shoulders. “I didn’t say anything.”  
  
“Yes you did.” The Commander snaps, irritably. Regardless she turns her attention to her tasks once more. “Stop distracting me. The radar is having detection issues.”  
  
“What does convergence mean? Not the definition… What do _you_ mean by convergence?”  
  
**_U_** _nity. Disassociation All organic matter._  
  
“Both unity and disassociation? Of what?”  
  
**_A_** _ll._ The creature extends its arms, shredding apart the skin that connected its forearm to its thigh. It’s a grotesque sound, and Peridot has not the slightest clue as to why Jasper hasn’t whipped around in her seat and filled the corpse with plasma rounds. The Tech isn’t sure why she hasn’t bothered to do so herself, either. Her sense of curiosity has always seemed to extend beyond her sense of caution when it came down to it.  
  
“I’m… I don’t understand.”  
  
**_L_** _eave it where you found it. You have to be careful. There will be nothing left of you. You have to resist._  
  
“Nothing you’re saying is making sense.” The headache is returning. Peridot places her fingers to her temple, and doubles over.  
  
**_D_** _o you think it was supposed to be found? Buried this deep?_  
  
“The Artifact?”  
  
The being sways its head, as if agonized by the title. Peridot had not noticed before, but as it leaned farther out, she could see the swell of organs beneath orange, translucent skin that expanded with each heave. The creature sucked in a particularly labored breath, and the skin tightened to the point Peridot feared it was going to burst.  
  
Jasper turned to say something to her. The creature gives her an answer and she is forced to tune the Commander out, lest she miss this pertinent information.  
  
**_L_** _ooking, acknowledging its presence was too much. It’s being **studied** now. You’re helping._   
  
It becomes angry, accusatory. A hard breath causes the skin to stretch out even farther. Peridot scrambles to find her voice, to tell the creature to calm down. She cannot get a word in.  
  
**_I_** _f you listen to them, they’ll take you. You have to tell everyone._  
  
Her mind is on overload from the information received. All of the relief prior is a faded sensation. The headache makes its return as a stabbing pain, and her stomach blooms with uncomfortable heat. “I… I’m not entirely sure what you’re talking about. Wasn’t this a secret? I still don’t know –.”  
  
**_H_** _undreds of thousands of voices compressed into a single entity. Individuality will die. The sense of self will evaporate. This unity this… crude collaboration must be prevented. But… The beginning. The dawn of Convergence._ Its tone becomes agonized. It releases an inhuman bellow and contorts its head so far back ligaments and the cartilage of its throat are torn and splayed open. Through the revealed opening, it finds an empowering wheeze and continues to expand.  
  
“No – _no, no_ **stop** –,” her pleading catches the attention of the Commander, who makes an effort to cock her head around far enough to get a look at the Technician.  
  
The creature swells and then erupts under the pressure of stolen oxygen. Organs and flesh explode out from the origin, entirely coating the room in black and red matter.  
  
Peridot drops her jaw open, eyes blown wide in absolute horror. Her voice is brought to a high pitch as she stutters out a shaky breath and while her mind is drawn blank with what she had just witnessed, she does not scream.  
  
Jasper is looking at her with abject calmness compared to Peridot’s own mortified disposition. She seems more concerned than anything. Jasper turns back around to play with the settings, before she unhooks herself from the seat and stands to approach the Technician. She crouches down in front of the black-haired female, looking stern and on edge.  
  
Crimson, beyond the usual painted markings, decorates half of Jasper’s face. Peridot can see that a portion of her white mane is drenched in brain matter and a retching sound escapes her. She grips the edge of her seat so tightly her knuckles are white beyond the paleness of her usual skin tone.  
  
Jasper, undeterred, clasps both of her hands on either side of the Technician’s clammy face, trying to meet her gaze.  
  
“I seriously need to you _calm down_. This isn’t like you at all and I’m more than tempted to call this off and return to the surface. You’re whispering to yourself, staring off into space like you’re looking at someone. I’m more than a little freaked out, and you look like you’re either about to bolt right out of here or beat me over the head.”  
  
Peridot tries to recall what she’s been told.  
  
_Tell everyone_.  
  
“Jasper you – we – leave it alone. We have to stop. It’s Convergence.” Peridot gives the other a once-over, and the smell of decay hits her. She tries to pry the desecrated hands from her own face, pushing herself back into the seat as far as she can just to get away from it. The entire room is caked and Jasper isn’t giving in the slightest consideration and, yes, it does make her want to bolt and run and get as far away from the sea location as possible because the stench is distinctly salty and so much like the ocean around them and it is sending her senses into overload.  
  
As opposed to backing off, Jasper grabs both of the metallic hands that are prying her own from her associate’s appalled expression and locks them in a tight grip, giving the Technician a relative amount of space only because she looks desperate enough to try anything to get away.  
  
“I think you should lie down in the chamber until you feel better. I’m going to mark our coordinates and set up a return date before requesting access to the surface.”  
  
“We have to tell them Jasper,” Peridot continues, her eyes flitting wildly over the Commander’s face. She pulls one of her hands free to reach up and smear it across the larger woman’s jaw. She then looks at her hand, disgusted and vexed. “You’re _covered_. Everything is _covered_. Why don’t you care?”  
  
Jasper quirks her lip and leans away to look around her at the plainly rustic, practically sterilized environment of the bathyscaphe’s interior, and then proceeds to wipe her palm against the side of her face. Looking at it, nothing abnormal shows. “Covered in what?”  
  
The Technician looks at her Escort like _she_ is the one to have lost her mind. As if she cannot believe Jasper could possibly ask that question.  
  
She blinks and the gore is gone at once. Jasper’s face is screwed into confusion and the bathyscaphe windows are so clear the encroaching void around them is visible once more. She looks at the hand that had graced the Escort’s face and finds that no fluid taints it. _What the_ hell _is going on?_ Peridot thinks, working her mouth to provide an explanation for herself.  
  
“Look,” Jasper starts, releasing her hold on the Technician and standing back up. She eases herself away, speaking in her usual scathed growl of a tone, albeit lower and more quietly. “We’re going to go back up now. I’ll get you in to the Medbay as soon as we get the bathyscaphe secured.”  
  
Peridot snaps her head towards the window. In the reflection, her eyes are absolutely _wild_. She doesn’t blame Jasper for putting some distance between them. She tries to smother her urgency.  
  
“Go lie down in the chamber. I’ll even flood some extra oxygen back there.”  
  
“I don’t want to.”  
  
“I didn’t ask if you wanted to.” Jasper makes a turn for authority.  
  
Begrudgingly, Peridot obeys. The unprofessional, borderline “friend” aspect of their job only goes so far and the Technician knows when Jasper means business.  
  
Maybe she does need to lie down. Just for a little while. She unhooks herself from the seat and slides off of it, stumbling her way towards the back. Pushing aside a heavy hatch on the floor, not too far from the one used to connect Jasper’s submersible to her own, she worms her way down into it and is instantly met with the softness of a cryo/memory foam dual preservative. It heats up as she lies against it, and then immediately cools, adjusting to her body temperature and causing her to feel as if she is lying on air.   
  
The lights dim as she attempts, with not too great of an effort, to get comfortable.  
  
On either side, the blackness of the deep encases her. She sucks in a breath and slowly exhales, and then repeats the process.  
  
The hum of the engine is a lulling noise and for once in quite a while, Peridot is allowed to stop gather her thoughts.  
  
She replays the warning, as cryptic as it seemed, and the events that led up to the creature’s termination. Was several weeks’ worth of terrible sleep finally leading up to her losing her head?  
  
It wasn’t uncommon.  
  
Several other scientists and researchers on the surface claimed to have odd visual and auditory hallucinations. But something like this? Peridot was sure she was a special case.  
  
It is difficult to discern whether or not she should be taking it seriously.  
  
But she cannot recall having _that_ much of a colourful imagination.  
  
She roams her hands along her person until she finds the seal along her bodysuit, and she pries it open, dipping to retrieve an almost paper thin holopad. Flattening it out against the top of the pill-shaped chamber, she uses her finger to calibrate the device to her touch and begins scribbling a furious amount of notes with the tip of a finger.  
  
Convergence, unity, The Artifact, the events that led up to the creature’s crude display. It is difficult to peer through the haze of the mental trauma; the migraine, the shock, the lack of understanding.  
  
For as well as she can draw, she supplies her own information with sketchy illustrations. Squinting at the glowing screen in the low light of the chamber does not improve her condition. Her thought process becomes ridden and flagrant with anguish and self-doubt until she becomes fed up with her own effort. She oozes a never ending tension and when adrenaline finally finishes coursing through her, she feels ragged and exhausted.  
  
Her distress is due to a disgusting lack of knowledge.  
  
She needs to compare notes and experience and she racks her brain for _whoever_ that could possibly supply her with either.  
  
The Technician’s limbs ache and her head is pounding by the time she whispers _fuck it_ , and shoves the holopad back into its place. There is time, isn’t there? The creature never said _when_ Convergence –.  
  
She can’t get into that again. She’s going to drive herself further into a delirium. Peridot refuses to turn on either side, fearing even a peek into the depths that surround her. She adjusts the cryofoam and allows the natural sleep-encouraging chemicals to ease themselves into her frame.  
  
Closing her eyes, the sensory deprivation leads her over the edge and into much needed rest.  



	3. Message

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peridot weighs what her mind has to offer.

In her dreams, the void consumes her senses.  
  
Peridot is weightless and without the oppression of time. She breathes easily without the compression of her skin-fitting suit though what flows through her lungs, she is not sure. She touches her bare hands to herself, free from the ironically liberating metallic touch of her limb enhancements, though her body is numb and the action is for naut.   
  
The back of her neck prickles with the incessant sensation of being watched and observed. By what, she cannot see.  
  
Cold concrete beneath her bare feet, and she stands before a wide passage. The tickle of whispers around her seeps through the dirt walls. Far more present behind her, Peridot is urged forward by the instinct to escape their grating voices. She squints into the darkness, and feels along her face for her visor. Fear and uncertainty settles into the pit of her stomach when she finds that she is without them.  
  
Squinting into the darkness, she places one foot in front of the other, and as she progresses, the passage lightens. The voices become clearer, more unionized and single-minded. She can make out a chanted mantra. The word slips from the depths in hopeless murmurs.  
  
_Convergence_.  
  
Beneath her feet, the concrete grows warm and wet. A single wrong step almost has her slipping into a quaking section of the floor. She recoils in disgust when her hand makes contact with the wall, and it rumbles beneath her palm. Her repulsion increases exponentially when, under further scrutiny, she determines that the floor is composed of organic material.  
  
It is rotten and sickly though it thrums with life.  
  
She turns and motions to return to the direction she had come from, only to be met with a solid wall of the stretched organic tissue. On either side of her, the walls shrivel and pull inwards. Bit by bit, the room shrinks in on her. The floor beneath her seems to gradually pivot forward, and the muscle-like substance, lined with sinews, creeps in a single direction, forcing her to progress onwards.  
  
She is unsteady on her own bare feet. Smaller, and on a much more personal level with the threat beneath her, the heavy drumming of her heart is felt in her throat and in her extremities.  
  
The room turns into a corridor as the walls compress, and Peridot quickens her pace, trying hard to quell the trembling in her hands as she fights for enough purchase on the slick surface to make it out before she succumbs to the crushing darkness. She hopes there _is_ a way out.  
  
The floor levels, and directly ahead, she can see an empty doorway. A breath of relief escapes her. The closer she gets to the empty doorway, the more noticeable the warm air becomes on her skin. She slows her pace in apprehension.   
  
As she creeps closer, she notices that the air is not just warm, but humid. It paints her in a sheen of unpleasant sweat and smothers her.  
  
There’s a distinct groan beyond the doorway and her hope dies.  
  
**_C_** _lose the door._  
  
The phrase is uttered with urgency. Peridot shoves past the restrictions of paralyzing apprehension and darts across the short expanse.  
  
**_I_** _t’s going to get out._  
  
She feels along the frame of the door and discovers that it is bare. No hinges, no door, no handle. Her tone spikes several octaves as she breathes out a desperate whine that does nothing to overshadow the gurgled wail from beyond the entrance. It sounds as if someone is drowning.  
  
Dark, congealed liquid pools around her feet as it seeps from beyond the entranceway. A crunching, snapping sound and foul smell accompanies it, and Peridot fights with herself in order not to double over and empty the contents of her stomach. A dry gag is all she gets out and a rumble answers it.  
  
Her hands tremble and the blood rushing through her ears almost makes it difficult to discern how close the thing on the other side may be.  
  
**_I_** _t’s too late to close it. You have to finish what you started._  
  
What did she start?  
  
She doesn’t want to finish it. She wants to go home. She wants the sterilized environment of her lab and a cold cup of coffee she had forgotten about amidst an ungodly accumulation of files and documents and she wants the sound-suppressed room waiting for her after a forty-eight hour shift with clean sheets and a ceiling above her that mimics the endless mass of the universe that she loves so much.  
  
Something moves in the darkness. Her heart hits her throat.  
  
It wheezes, chokes, and steps towards her.  
  
Humanoid, just like the creature she had seen in the bathyscaphe. Two long tusk-like appendages stretch out over its head, joined at the shoulder gleaming in the low undistinguished light. Shreds of clothing cling to its corpse, and tufts of brown hair stick out of its skull in torn patches. The uniform appears to be from a security detail. It shuffles closer, and the Technician can make out two much smaller arm-like appendages protruding from its rotten intestines. Vacant, milky eyes loll about in the direction of the doorway without purpose until, all too suddenly, the thing goes rigid. As it inhales, the breath escapes from Peridot’s lungs, and she finds herself gaping uselessly.  
  
There has to be something she can do. She eyes the space between the creature’s legs, and judges just how fast she would need to be in order to duck between them and escape into the encumbering darkness. She does not consider where she would hide or how long she could escape it. Fear stalls her thought process, and freezes her on step one. She replays her vision of escape over and over until she can think of nothing but the success of it. Drown the paralysis, take action.  
  
Her right foot twitches as she readies herself to dart forward, her eyes locked on her destination beyond the raw irritation of the organic floor.  
  
It has a disorienting amount of speed. The shock of it keeps her rooted. Before she could lift one foot off the ground, it lunges, and stops in front of her, strangling her with the rancid odor of its cavernous maw.  
  
It takes her a few moments to notice.  
  
The pain is deep. An insatiable sharp throbbing that only grows in intensity as her blurry, watery vision travels downwards. It collapses her form and shoots a white heat through all of her immediate thoughts. Plasma burns are an absolute relief compared to it.  
  
The warmth leaves her. The tusk that is buried into her stomach is pulled upwards, and the ragged uneven bone structure pierces one of her lungs. She is thrown into a coughing fit that results in her drawn mouth being flooded with blood. Her hands fly to the tusk, uselessly pushing against it with strength that dwindles as soon as she bends her arms at the elbow. Her fingers slip against the blood flowing down the structure of the bone.  
  
It is not how she wants to die.  
  
She is unable to move as she is lifted off of the ground and swain to the side. The creature’s misshapen mouth upturns into what Peridot can only interpret to be a cruel smile.  
  
Her deathly visage is reflected in eyes of mindless hunger. She is powerless to do anything more than twitch and jerk as she is lowered back towards its gaping jaws, suffocating in the life that once ran through her veins. Long incisors sink into her dark hair and compress her mouth closed before she can taste the rank air. She snaps her eyes shut and desperately fights to produce an image that is anything but the back of the beast’s throat.  
  
_Jasper_  
  
\---  
  
She wakes up drenched, trembling, and sucking in desperate breaths. There is not enough oxygen in the pill-shaped container. She feels compressed and imprisoned.  
  
The first thing she does is feel for her face. Intact, though strewn in horror. The exterior of her suit is cooled; an effort to regulate her internal risen body temperature. Coated in her own sweat, it seemed to be having little impact. She shifts herself up and sets her shaken metallic (metallic!) hands against the compression wheel, turning it and pushing outwards. The Technician pulls herself up through the entrance, and grapples for whatever considerate breath she can steal in the new open room, feeding her body the relieving oxygen it demanded.  
  
Jasper is nowhere to be seen and a significant part of her is grateful for that. The precious moment of solitude in an open space does not go without being cherished. She staggers towards a crate and sits down, inspecting the metal tips of her fingers, running them over her fabric-restricted arms. Her heart is furiously punching her rib cage but she’s _okay_. She has a moment to school herself into nonchalance and recover.  
  
Outside the bathyscaphe, there are lights that turn the water green. The structure of the vehicle creaks beneath the pressure of the water as it sways against a tide and after a few moments of reflection, Peridot recognizes the lapping of surface waves against the top of the submersible. She wipes the back of her hand against her eyes, takes a steadying breath, and approaches the glass.  
  
Small black spires sink into the top of the vehicle, holding it in place, and sections of wire are visible from where she stands, which connect into the back. The spires cause her to recollect her dream all too vividly, and she takes a step away from the glass, unconsciously hugging her arms. They are stationed at the port of the station, and Peridot does not doubt that Jasper had gone off to check the submersible in and relay their reports. Peridot still has her own to type up, but she has a max of four days to complete it, and feels little rush to hop right out of the vehicle and sprint her way to her room. There is little to say for what awaits her on the surface. Noise, construction, questions, security assessment, health monitoring (by Jasper’s word) that involve neurological assessments on top of physical, and a number of other variables that she simple is not in a state of patience for.  
  
She relishes the quiet.  
  
Though it is not a distraction from the persistent mental images of her slumber that plague her, it is better than the nuisances of human contact. For the moment.  
  
She stalks her way over to the pilot seat, slides down into it, and sighs heavily, as if doing so could possibly dispel the burden placed upon her shoulders. The entire seat smells of the Commander, and while it isn’t entirely unpleasant, it consists of two days without a shower and excessive amounts of body spray. It’s a _little_ unpleasant, but Peridot cannot claim innocence on going two days without a shower. The bathyscaphes simply do not have room for that kind of luxury. The Technician wallows in the thought a little longer, before leaning forward and activating the console. There is little harm in reviewing footage from her submersible as well as Jasper’s. Call it prep work, if she is to be caught. There are standards she holds herself to, and she cannot allow the condition of the footage to be turned in as it is.  
  
\---  
  
Jasper fitted the utility belt to herself, and rechecked her suit. The armour moves compatibly with her size, and it is a relief to have the familiar weight on her form. She flexes her arm, and tests her mobility. It would do her no good to have any part of her gear catch on another in a situation that demands her control and action.  
  
She earns good pension with her rank, and her tasks are far more satisfying than that of a desk-ridden bureaucrat. It’s something to be thankful for, even as she grumbles beneath her breath and stalks down the corridor, opening her navigation from the front of her suit. The bright holographic line leads her to her destination on the massive station in the most convenient route, and is only visible to herself. That in itself is convenient, so no one around her can see how blatantly lost she, a security detail, is on the water-stranded station. She’s used to commandeering exo-atmospheric vehicles, not planet-driven research facilities.  
  
Jasper can even manifest a three dimensional map in front of herself, select various floors, and get a bird’s eye view of them from her own position, so long as she has the proper clearance to view them.  
  
There are cafeterias, commons, communal habitats, oxygen maintenance with engines, lab decks, utilities, engineering, the communications hub. The list goes on, and it is little wonder how even those who have spent a couple of weeks in the facility can manage to lose themselves.  
  
The Bay takes her half an hour to reach from utilities, and that is taking fast-paced no-nonsense steps.  
  
Scientists and civilian personnel go out of their way to escape her path. There is formidable benefit to being a hulking figure clad in armor, even if it is in conformed attire.  
  
Down a multitude of corridors and a couple flights of stairs, since elevators are reserved for executive associated staff, she arrives in the Bay area. There is a drastic change in temperature as Jasper approaches a doorway that automatically scans her person for her identification and access code before parting open.  
  
She breathes rawly into the air and trudges her way across a console platform, down to where the submersible vehicles are stationed. She stalls for a moment, determinine which one she had surfaced in upon. She needs a solid night of rest and there is still much to be done.  
  
A significant part of her wants to hold off on sleep as long as possible. But it can’t be afforded in her line of work when a consistent amount of attention is always demanded. If she is lucky a new shipment of coffee has arrived in the lower level break room. That hope is enough to motivate her to cross the deck, board the top of her submersible, and unscrew the top latch.  
  
The ladder is freezing to the touch. The water temperature of the planet around the facility is not regulated, simply because it is too resource costly for the length of time they’ll be attentive to that particular oceanic zone.  
  
It is just another motivation that urges her to get in, and out, and complete her given tasks.  
  
She scales down the ladder, touches a boot to the floor, and pivots towards the narrow entrance that requires a duck of her head before she surfaces into the broad room of the bathyscaphe. Several feet ahead of her, the monitor flashes silent with images recovered from the abandoned submersible. With a burst of memory, Jasper touches her hand to an internal pocket of her suit at the front of her chest, running a thumb along the solid rectangle that takes up discreet space, before she squares her shoulders and marches up to the side of the seat.  
  
Her brogue is dispassionate and guttural.   
  
“It’s protocol to surface upon docking when conscious.”  
  
Peridot ignores her. It causes a corner of Jasper’s lip to curl, and she stops short, trying to neutralize her expression. The Technician has often remarked upon how _animalistic_ her mannerisms can seem. She will not give that satisfaction.  
  
She sets a heavy hand on the back of the pilot seat, and swings it around hard enough to jostle the occupant.  
  
“Get out,” she commands, already reaching to unhook the ghostly-looking female.  
  
Peridot swats at the invading hands with surprising vigor compared to Jasper’s weary deflections of her effort. “Stop! I’m compressing the data I – we – Jasper _stop_.”  
  
“I already turned it in. When I caught the signal of the surface I told them when we were arriving and I was given a _specific_ time to turn it in to The Authority. Dragging you out of the chamber and taking you to the medical bay first would’ve jeopardized that time which is the _only_ reason you’re still in here.” Fed up, Jasper swats at the other’s defensive hand hard, causing the Technician to recoil and shrink back into her seat with abject horror. When Jasper goes to justify her action, Peridot interrupts her.  
  
“You _what_?” Her voice tears from her throat with a surprising pitch. Her hands fly to her hair, tugging at the strands in disbelief. It gives Jasper the opportunity to pry her out from the seat, and back away from it before the female can flail to grab hold of it again. “The files were completely disorganized. Some were cut off, some were hours of irrelevant watery darkness – I’m _responsible_ for making it visually appealing and in convenient compliance with the standards The Authority –.”  
  
“It’s her fault it isn’t up to par if she wanted it in such a damn hurry.”  
  
“That isn’t how it works.” Easily exhausted by the struggle, with no help from the number of hours she had been out of commission in the horrific realm of sleep, Peridot thumps the Commander’s breastplate with a curled fist, and pushes the frames of her interface further up onto her nose, meeting with bitter eye contact.  
  
“I turned it in, personally. It’s fine.”  
  
“It _isn’t_ ,” Peridot insists with finality, even as Jasper hefts her better into her arms, and carts her back towards the ladder. “I don’t want to go to the medical bay. I want to go to my room.”  
  
“You sound like you’re five.”  
  
“I have every reason to be against the idea of being admitted.”  
  
As if the Commander could possibly understand what it meant to be admitted under such conditions. When Jasper’s hand reaches the ladder with purpose, Peridot’s heart sinks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all very much for the support you have given me so far. I appreciate the kudos and the reviews very much.  
> If you want any prompts or drabbles done feel free to ask.


	4. Easy Way Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peridot gets an early dismissal.

The counter is cold. It bites through the thin material of the grey jumpsuit, and Peridot finds herself endlessly wiggling along the edge of where she sits. There is a tray of food beside her but she has no appetite. The cold keeps her grounded and prevents her frantic mind from wandering too far from the present moment. In the other room, barred by an automatic door, Peridot can make out the faint conversation, if only barely. She watches her interface, hoping it would pick up any words she misses or misinterprets.

“… Patient… Violence attempt…” It sounds like a question.

“No.”

“…discrepancy… certain depth, mentality can… advise decommission.”

The voices draw closer, and Peridot scoots away from the doorway, clenching her jaw and trying to loosen her tense posture. The calmer she appears to be, she knows, the easier this will go for her.

Dr. Maheswaran steps into the room as a singular metallic door slides open, tucking something into the top left pocket of her lab coat. An older, balding man with sunken eyes and a disheveled appearance follows in behind her, and offers Peridot a withering smile. It does nothing to console her.

She swallows, and the dryness of her mouth causes a small cough to escape her. It is enough to break the strain of silence.

“Your coworker said you’ve been experiencing a few… mental disturbances as of late.” It is Dr. Maheswaran who speaks, looking from the holo pad in her hand to Peridot, and back to the holo pad.

Her expression must blatantly show how she feels, because the Doctor looks on, tiredly, and approaches closer to the table, offering what consolation she can. “You’re certainly not the only one in the facility to be afflicted by this. In fact there’s been an unfortunately drastic escalation in the occurrences. I’m going to run just a couple of tests on you, and then I’m going to write you a referral, allowing you to take a few leisure days from your work. During that time, I will periodically check up on you, via the coworker that submitted you for evaluation. I have a couple of slips for you to sign…” She begins rummaging through an actual folder of documents, forfeiting her holopad for the time being.

Peridot glances to the man behind her, worrying her teeth against her lip. “What is he here for? He doesn’t have an identification tag.”

Dr. Maheswaran pauses her rummaging for a moment, furrows her brows, and looks to Peridot once more before looking over her shoulder. The question goes unanswered, aside from a soft ‘hmm’, and a couple of documents are handed to the Technician.

“Read over this if you want to. Basic confidentiality and commitment to treatment, your signature for agreement.”

Peridot looks over the document, taking her time with anything italic or bold. Her eyes wander to the pen in her hand - there’s something peculiar about it. Something important. When she scribbles her signature, and hands the papers over, Doctor Maheswaran looks at the pen expectantly.

Peridot’s grip tightens.

”I know it seems silly, but I’m going to need that back. While you’re admitted here, anything remotely sharp can’t be in your possession.” She holds her hand out.

Peridot takes a longer look at the pen, straining to hand it over.

It’s like a switch; on. 

One moment, she’s amicable if not bitter, the next moment she has the livid desire to jam the tip of the pen through the Doctor’s eye and as far back into the woman’s cranium as her strength will allow her.

Off. She is horrified by the detailed depiction her mind’s eye provided her, and her grip on the pen jerks as if it had burnt her. Maheswaran is so quick to conceal the pen, Peridot would feel insulted, were her hands not trembling from the remnants of the adrenaline spike. Her breath has picked up and it is not something that goes unnoticed by the Doctor, who furrows her brows in concern. The man behind her smiles stupidly.

Peridot musters a sneer in his direction.

”Perhaps we should postpone your release. It’s for your own protection, everyone here has been on edge of course and -.”

”No, no!” She squeaks, sliding down from the metal counter, offering a nervous grin. Her lower jaw is trembling and it causes her to tighten it out of annoyance.

Maheswaran puts some distance between them. Peridot knows she is only pretending to grab a file by the desk. Peridot notices the fan by the holoscreen. 

It suddenly annoys her.

Was it put there on _purpose_ to annoy her?

” _Stay here_ , I’ll be back,” the Doctor urges, and rushes out of the room, closing it behind her with the audible beep of a lock.

Peridot gets up, walks over, and unplugs the fan by jerking it out of its power station. How archaic. _Clearly_ meant to annoy her.

The man with the sunken eyes is sitting there, smugly she thinks, and silent.

She turns a hard gaze to him and clenches her fist. “ **What**?” The technician bites out.

His smile grows and he stands, lanky and abnormally tall. “Do you want the easy way out, or the hard way out?”

The question is startling. She cocks her head to look at the door behind him, expecting Maheswaran to barge back in at any second.

”What’s... The easy way?” She knows the hard way. She’s seen many who didn’t have a choice. She didn’t even know there was a choice. The medical committee has always held their secrets closely. But hiding practical options for patients? That is going down an avenue she doesn’t want to think about. She is glad she was purposed to be a technician. She had very few secrets she needed to hide.

The man digs into the pockets of his disheveled lab coat, and produces two different bottles of pills. 

Peridot watches with rapt attention.

He opens them, taking his sweet time, as if unveiling some grand new technology. Two pills are dumped into his left hand’s palm, and he extends it for Peridot to view.

Two pills, one white, and one so black it seems to suck in the light around it. She reaches for the black one slowly, eyes him, and touches it, half expecting it to suck her finger in like a miniature black hole.

”What are they _for_?” She asks skeptically, and nasally.

”The hallucinations, of course,” he tips the pills back into their respective containers. “You take the white one in the morning, and the black one before bed, daily.”

”They help?”

”They help. You take them, and I’ll release you from the office.”

She wants out. She wants to go back to her room, and lie down for a few hours, and process the previous day’s events, and today. She takes both bottles, and he tells her to return for a refill in a month, and moves to the side of the door, entering a code. The door slides open to sweet freedom. 

Peridot doesn’t grant him so much as a sigh. She’s out the door, down the hall, and past the receptionist, who gives her a very odd look, and reaches for the phone.

”The doctor released me to my room,” Peridot starts, and holds up the bottles. The exhausted looking receptionist signs something near her desk, and Peridot assumes she is free to go. Her eyes roam the prescription label on both of the bottles as she pushes through a set of double doors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one was so short. I'm gradually getting back into writing. Lots of stress lately. I seriously appreciate all the support you guys have given me though, it's actually very motivating. The next chapter will change perspective and finally introduce Lapis.


	5. Arrival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lapis is introduced to the station along with several others.

She jolts forward a little in her cot, alerting her to the fact they have exited the rift. She was tired of staring at the ceiling. Tired of listening to the woman next to her talk to herself listlessly.   
  
_ Holly this, Holly that _ .    
  
Lapis had asked who Holly was, received a glare, and had a  _ book _  thrown at her. A book was contraband, but she flipped through it anyway before deciding to slide it back across the floor towards the other. It wasn ’t her taste. A part of her regretted sliding it back over. A guard hadn’t visited them in what  _ seemed _  like days. Lapis tried to mark the days by their sleep schedules, but the less there was to do, the more she slept. The guards grew more and more inconsistent in their routes.   
  
Sometimes, her cell mate awoke in a cold sweat with wild eyes. Sometimes, it made Lapis afraid to sleep.

The other hadn't eaten in days. The _paste_  they were served made Lapis lose her appetite more often than not.

Lapis decided to dub her cell mate _sharky_ , as childish as it was. When the woman did smile, it was uncannily sharp, uncannily predatory.

It would be hours more until they reached the station, and she found herself drifting back into the abyss of sleep. A snore must have escaped her, because she awoke with a snort, and scrunched her eyes. Opening them, she stared into the almost violet eyes of her cell mate, and promptly yelled out in surprise.

Sharky was unperturbed. Her eyes entirely lucid; as lucid as Lapis had ever seen them.

"We've docked," she stated in her deep tone, and leaned away, looking past the plasma field door.

Lapis rubbed the heel of her palms into her eyes and sat up, grunting. Before she could get a word out, the door farthest down the hall way slid open, and Sharky stumbled to a stand.

_Military_ , Lapis thought with disdain, and then wondered what the woman had done to earn her a place beside Lapis. The way she stood straight and postured said everything. It was a little remarkable, given how little the woman had eaten, how little they had moved in who knew how long, how cramped their cell was. 

Lapis wiggled from her hard bed, dug the form-fitting black suit from any uncomfortable crevice, and stood beside the other, feeling more tired than she ever had in her life.

This was her final destination. And the time leading up to it had been less than exciting.

And as ready for it as she thought she was, the click of heels against the floor still sent chills down her spine. The head figure of the facility herself passed in front of their cell. Through the wavy visage of the plasma field, Lapis could see her _somewhat_  clearly. The field before her eyes dissipated. Her muscles tensed with the immediate desire to escape down the hall, but two large forms crowded into the entrance. One guard grabbed Sharky, roughly jerking her, and twisting her arms behind her back. 

Lapis thought she heard an apology mumbled into her cell mate's ear.

She was given the same treatment, and glared as fiercely as she could manage at the tall soldier securing her thin arms behind her back.

" _Come_ ," the woman had snapped, and Lapis was shoved forward, out into the hall. Another guard was there to meet her, and she was flanked by both on either side. Lapis liked to think it was entirely unnecessary. But her last escape attempt led to significant changes in the facility's security measures. 

Sharky went on a tangent, half of her words unintelligible babbling, the other have begging for forgiveness and overflowing with excuses.

"Please Holly. _Please_ , you know me. I didn't do it. I didn't. Holly please.  Holly please listen-"

Lapis managed to incline her head back, getting an eye full of the buckling former soldier, eyes brimming with tears, wild with fear, baring those uncanny teeth like a cornered animal.

So this was Holly.

Lapis managed to feel bad for her cell mate.

The woman needed help, not an execution. 

A muzzle-like contraption had been secured over the woman's face, and it brought on a whole new bout of tears.

_Holly_  had not made a move to look behind her, but Lapis could see the tension in her shoulders, much akin to the tension on the guards' faces who were responsible for securing, and leading Sharky.

The air seemed choked with fear, remorse, uncertainty. It made Lapis dizzy, and she stumbled her way across the expanse of the hallway. 

A smaller, much thinner woman stood near the doorway. She lacked the muscle of the guards around them, but held her stance all the same, her eyes locked on Sharky, only for her gaze to shift across the room as Holly drew closer. The woman stopped beside the guard with a click of her heel, leaned over, and hissed something in the guard's ear that seemed to make the thin woman sick; the clenching of her jaw and a drawling drop of sweat down her forehead making it clear. Holly then straightened, and moved past the sliding doorway.

Lapis looked back, and as Sharky passed near the entrance, the thin guard gave her what seemed to be a supportive squeeze on her bicep. 

Lapis smiled a little, despite herself. Someone was getting comfort in their last hour. The smile was quick enough to fade. She was alone in this.

\---

The station was nothing like she expected. It was bustling with activity from various different soldiers of various shapes and sizes, and several times, she spotted ones in lab coats. Researchers? It hardly made sense to her. 

This was no execution platform, and that made her even more nervous. She had no intention of becoming some kind of experimental subject to a group of damn _Unitologists_.

Sharky seemed to have quieted down considerably, her eyes shifting wildly around them, her mouth working silently behind the odd muzzle.

Holly rounded on them, looked them up and down, and gave a _look_  to Sharky. A mixture of relief, and perhaps even regret. It was perplexing. And then she was gone.

Lapis took this time to look around the docking room they entered, squared away to the left side of the large, bustling room. Their ship had been small enough to enter a short port, leading almost directly into one of the main lobbies. An officer with cropped dark hair, shaved in the back, sat at the desk, and never gave them a second glance past her initial judging stare. She typed away on her holopad like no tomorrow, and after a short period of time, Lapis was jostled forward towards the counter, and then in front of a white background.

Another picture. Her lips tugged down, displeased. They couldn't just transfer her initial mugshot? She was sure she looked far worse now than she had when initially brought aboard the other ship. Her picture was snapped in seconds, and then Sharky was ushered before the officer. They hadn't even bothered to remove the muzzle, and her picture was taken with her eyes owlish and fearful. She was still sniffling.

Couldn't even offer the woman a tissue. 

Lapis' attitude was never the best, but it continued to worsen. 

"Name," the officer stated, boredly focused on the holopad. When Lapis did not respond, the officer raised her tone. " **Name**."

"Lapis."

"Last name."

"Lazuli."

Her throat ached from disuse. Water would have been godsend.

They never asked Sharky's name. But she supposed, being a soldier like them, her name was well-documented. At least they had taken their hands off her cell mate. It gave Lapis pause. They had hardly talked. She had no idea what the other did to land her in such a situation. How could she bother to care? She hadn't bothered before about anyone else. Solo was what she did best, what she preferred. 

Perhaps the situation had her overwhelmed, fragmented. Stars, she just wanted to lie down for a while. Not on the cell cot. In a nice apartment bed, where her only personal companionship was a well-behaved little python that liked to poke its head out and study her when she played games or listened to music. Occasionally, her neighbor bothered her, asking to exchange games on the same system. An invite for an online match from a younger kid named Steven she had only ever spoken to over voice chat.

Back when things were just significantly easier. She had come to enjoy Earth. Earth wasn't truly that great, either.

She turned to the stars for employment, and no more. They no longer beheld the same freedom that they did when she was younger.

Those days were far, far beyond her grasp.

In the least, the soldiers' grip on her had softened considerably. Out of the corner of her eye, several guards offered hesitant, apologetic looks to her cot mate. There was a lower level of unease in their eyes as they looked at Sharky, and a mere touch to the shoulder was horribly hesitant. Sharky's eyes were fixated on the ground. The look in them made Lapis want to turn tail.

They no longer seemed lucid. They weren't _right_.

Lapis shifted her bare feet against the stagnant, sanitized hard floors, attempting to ease away a little bit. An inch of room was all the lenience she seemed to be allowed before the grip on her arm returned and she was tugged back into place.

The doors opened, and a hulking figure in armor trudged in. The guards around them immediately snapped into salutes, and the officer at the desk dropped all tasks to afford the same level of respect. All of their voices mended together.

"Commander."

Said Commander offered a grunt, her attention more focused on the PDA in her hands, which seem far too big for the little data assistant. 

The Commander locked her eyes to Sharky, and Lapis hardly liked the look that came over her. Then, those golden eyes roamed over Lapis.

"What's this one here for?" She had growled out, approaching, but keeping a respectable distance.

"Leaking unauthorized company documents and distributing them, Sir.  Corrupting ship data. Interrupting planetary cracking. Fraternizing with a Corporal."

_That was one time_ , Lapis thought bitterly, her brows tugging down along with her displeased lips. _And it was her idea_.

"Falsifying medical documents, taking leave on-"

"I get it," the Commander stated, approaching one of the soldiers, hand held out. The soldier produced a memory stick, and passed it over.

"Send _that one_  for medical examination, and then solitary confinement until the results are clear. This one comes with me. Jay, move your ass. You three, escort."

Lapis, oddly, hoped it would not be the last time she saw her cot mate. Even if the months of confinement had worn on her. The company of the other had, though tense, been better than the solitude she had been forced to endure for up to for who-the-hell-knew how long. It had frayed her mind, without a doubt. She often wondered just how _much_  it did.

It all happened without much warning.

Lapis should have said something. But she then understood why the muzzle had been placed on.

Sharky barreled the full of her weight into the guard to the right of her, snapping her teeth, eyes ferocious. When she couldn't sink her teeth into the guard, she reared her head, and sent it down hard into the center of the guard's face, and blood sprayed.

The change was immediate, and the Commander was the first to move. The other guards snapped electric batons from their belts, but the Commander sunk her hand into the wild mane of the woman, and pulled back hard, wrestling her to the ground and administering her own electric punishment. It hardly seemed to subdue Sharky, who only howled.

"THEY'RE UNDER MY SKIN!" She shrieked, and threw herself into a bout of slamming her head back against the tiled floors. Several guards came forward to hold her head still, to secure her arms against the ground.

All guards left her, except one, who she assumed to be Jay. The guard stood with her mouth agape, her hand loose on Lapis, and for a moment she thought of freedom again.

Here, on this station, it was beyond her.

"Third dose," she heard the Commander bark. A needle was produced and jammed into the struggling soldier's bicep. Her pupils had gone huge but she struggled aimlessly, inflicting whatever damage she could to herself and those around her.

A fourth dose was demanded, and Sharky finally went lax, her head lolling to the side and her eyes vacant. Her chest heaved hard. 

  
Finally, Jay tugged on her arm, oddly gentle, and directed her to the sliding doors past the station the officer sat at, her own baton flared and at the ready. Lapis eyed the motorized Pulse Rifle beside the desk near the officer's feet.

This room was far quieter than the hustle of outside, which could even be heard in the lobby she had just left. Here, it was nice. 

"What did they stick her with?"

Jay looked at her in surprise, how one might look at a lamp that just spoke. "Uhh... A type of tranquilizer. They're not tryna kill her."

"What are we doing here? Where are the other prisoners?"

The question seemed to make Jay thoroughly uncomfortable. She shifted her eyes away, one hand absently twirling a strand of hair that often seemed to be twirled, unlike the rest of the wild mane. She clasped her hands to her sides promptly when the door opened, revealing a very less-than-enthusiastic Commander. 

The Commander took a long look at Lapis, and made a motion with her hand. Jay snapped a salute, spun on the heel of her boot, and trudged towards the door at the far side of the room. The doors slid open, and she stepped out, and then to the side. When it closed, a weighted silence ensued. 

Lapis found the resolve to look up at the towering soldier, and into her almost golden eyes.

The Commander tugged a rolling chair over towards the desk, and pushed it out towards Lapis, sitting in the nearest one that buckled beneath her size and weight. She did not speak until Lapis sat, and when she did, it was low, her brows scrunched, and her face etched into what almost seemed to be a permanent scowl.

"I am Jasper. You will refer to me as Commander outside of this room after this. We are going to have a long, long discussion."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is highly appreciated! I would like to continue working on this, as well as other prompts and ideas given to me. Feedback is motivation.


	6. Internalized

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peridot gets mothered over her mistakes, Jasper gets a human-shaped migraine.

Back in her quarters, Peridot finally felt safe, felt free to breathe, and she took a look around the quaint interior.

Nothing had been disturbed.

Her bed was still neatly made, her console on standby, and the terrarium at the far corner of the room sitting peacefully. The sound of the sliding door and the consequential lock had garnered attention from the small creature inside, which peered out from a naturalistic hide with beady eyes and a flicking tongue.

Andromeda, her companion had named him.

It was the longest pet sitting job she ever had, Peridot considered with a smile, and then a frown. Her friend had never returned for him. Nor returned any of her emails. But she kept her promise, and the easy unburdened companionship of the python had turned out to be invaluable. Truly an introvert's asset.

She wandered across the room to a desk, and set the pills down, turning them so that the labels faced outwards with the rest of her medication; a quirk, she supposed. She could start with the black ones tonight. Or would it be best to wait until the morning for the white ones? She had been given very minimal instruction, being in such a rush to escape.

She really hadn't needed to go. Nothing had happened after she exited the bathyscaphe. In her personal, completely professional opinion, Jasper had overreacted. Heavily.

But she supposed, in her position, she might have done the same thing. A significant part of her knew this went beyond duty, and was much more personal. A smaller part of her was tired of being looked after. A heavy gaze near-constantly over her shoulder. At least, with her tasks, she had more privacy than she often knew what to do with.

She was due an email of apology to the Authority for the conduct of the report turned in. The video report. She believed she could easily make up for it with a thorough, crisp written report.

And it would prove that she was indeed entirely within the right mind, just in case the medical documentation came back on her.

Perhaps the doctor would cast it aside if no further incidents arose, but that seemed to be wishful thinking.

She tried to think back on what had gone wrong, but as the time passed, it all seemed to fade from memory. The deeply disturbed expression of the Commander remained, more than anything.

And the dream.

That remained firm in her mind, cutting off any appetite she might have worked up since the surfacing.

She sat in the rolling chair, scrolling through emails.

A docking authorization from a prison ship. Some maintenance protocols sent to her from colleagues, requesting she look them over and confirm the procedures. A couple personal emails. One from a friend at another station, and another from a technician who thought a particular cat image was the _best thing in the galaxy_.

All right, it was pretty great. 

So was getting this report done, Peridot.

At the end of two hours, after typing up a rough draft and reorganizing it, tweaking every little thing she could think of, she forwarded it, and sat back in her chair contemplatively. It always seemed like more work in her head. There was no enthusiasm in her to reply to any of the other emails. The silent clock on the wall, integrated with every other clock and watch on the station, showed midnight, and she cringed, hoping the email notification would not have bothered the Authority.

More and more mistakes seemed to pile up. She stood, stretched until her spine crackled, and reached for sleep medication.

A soft, sturdy knock on the door almost ended with the open bottle on the floor as she jumped, and whirled on the door wildly.

For a flickering moment, she saw the gaping, dark entrance again, with glowing milky eyes and shimmering bone waiting beyond it, and her heart hit her throat. It was an instantaneous reaction, and she had to ground herself, wiping the sweat of her palms on her suit. At least she had the sense to remove the mechanical enhancements hours ago. 

 

The knock came again, and her feet finally moved.

Tapping on the small screen beside the door, Peridot squinted into it, only to be met with urgent, all too familiar eyes, and she sighed. Of course she would still be buzzing up this late. Peridot murmured for the door to unlock, and the mechanism shifted open. Hardly a second passed before Pearl burst into the room, ushering the door closed behind her.

"What were you thinking?" She immediately started, her voice pitching. "They are _looking for you_!"

"They didn't think to check my room?"

Pearl smushed her face into her hands, pacing across the room. "I don't think they decided to check the most obvious place, because no one would wander straight back to their room, Peridot! Garnet can only do so much to sway a whole search party of rampant doctors with their jobs on the line because the receptionist let you free into the populace!"

"A doctor signed the release." Peridot waved her hand, mulling towards the medications on her counter. "See? I even have a prescription order."

Pearl, looking increasingly distraught, followed her, and looked closely at the capsule given to her. "It... has Maheswaran's signature." She popped the lid, looking inside. "What _are_ these?"

"Uh, pills. Obviously. He said it was a quick fix. But _seriously_ , Pearl. Everyone is overreacting. It was probably just the pressure down there. Jasper was acting weird too."

"She said you were talking to yourself. And screaming."

"She's a jug head. I have brains that were... Maybe a little mushed down there."

Pearl rounded on her, squinting. "You're not doing Red Sand, are you?"

Peridot gaped at her, her arms loose at her side before she threw them up, yelling. "Pearl are you kidding me?"

"Okay, okay, _be quiet_. Listen to me. Whatever happened to you down there... It's happening to more and more people on the station, and it didn't _start_  with just this station. That's why they wanted you to stay put. I don't know any more than that, and I think you need to go back. There have been some seriously concerning stories"

"Rumors. You're treating me like a deranged mental patient _five minutes_  after waltzing in here. I haven't even tried the medication yet. This is easy for you to say, isn't it? What if it were you?"

Pearl stared at her wordlessly, arms crossed, and face neutral. It made Peridot burn with embarrassment, like being chastised by her mother.

"Your eyes are bloodshot."

"And yours aren't?"

"I've been up for thirty-two hours."

"Then go to bed!" Peridot threw her arms up again, raking her hands back through her hair, messing up the pins.

Pearl tiredly pinched the bridge of her nose, and took a breath. "I just wanted to check on you. See if you were here, okay? I'm going to have to tell Garnet, and Maheswaran, but I'll explain this. You... seem okay. Please stay out of trouble."

This seemed to relax Peridot, or at least relax her defensiveness. She puffed a sigh, and looked to her bed. "I'm just really, really tired. I just want to sleep. I didn't want to be poked and prodded and they talked about decommissioning. I need this job, Pearl."

"I know."

The stood in a tense silence for several moments, before Pearl relented, and moved back towards the door. "Garnet will understand. But expect a visit soon. You know I'll try to help you."

With that, she was gone, back out the door, leaving Peridot in her silence again. She put on ambient music, stared up at her false stars, and tossed and turned for hours more.

\---

Jasper would have given anything at that very moment in time to pawn this off on another officer.

The prisoner sat before her, expression vacant but vaguely pissy, legs spread obscenely wide and arms crossed tightly over her chest, slouched so low Jasper had to wonder how she managed to sit like that for the past hour.

She tried not to show how utterly exhausted she was; she hadn't slept at all since surfacing, and it had to have been clear to the other. But she tried everything to remain alert. Her younger days taught her a lot about dropping her guard around prisoners for a fraction of a second. Friendly face or not, they always posed a threat. A scar, deep in her shoulder, displayed the clear remains of a shiv having been jabbed through the skin. He had been the tamest man she had to deal with that year.

Jasper displayed the hologram again, and pressed the question again when met with silence.

"Do you know this person?"

"No."

"She was one of the prisoners on your previous transport."

"So I heard."

Jasper wanted to throw the holopad at her. Maybe flip a table, punch a wall, scream a little.

Instead, she clenched her teeth until her jaw ached, and flipped to the next image.

"Do you know this person?"

"Nah."

Sweet hell.

"This one?"

"Third time you've shown me, so I guess."

"She's _dead_." Jasper pressed.

The prisoner's shoulders rose, then fell.

Jasper leaned back in her seat, and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"You were one of the very few present at the time of her death. You are one of the few survivors from that transport. You _have_  seen her face. She was in cell twenty-three."

"Saw her face. Didn't know her."

"Can you tell me," Jasper leaned forward, her teeth clenched. "What the _fuck_  happened that day?"

The prisoner shifted in her seat, and tapped one of her bare feet, eyes glancing over the hologram. "Says right there. Beat her head against the wall after killing three others."

"You saw it. How did she behave before then? What words were exchanged?"

The prisoner grew silent again, stilling herself.

Tired of sitting, Jasper stood, and the prisoner finally straightened in her seat, expression growing hard. Insolent.

"Bet you're sick of prison paste," Jasper began, crossing her arms. "Piece of pizza if you at _least_  tell me about your cell mate, 8XS."

The prisoner gave pause, her lips twisting. "Don't know her name. We were in the same cell for... Don't really know how long. Whenever I arrived on that ship. She was never violent. Just really weird and unsettling."

"How?"

"Pizza."

Jasper rolled her eyes, and pressed a button on the radio at her hip.

The thin guard from the arriving prison transport popped her head through the door as it slid open.

"Pizza. What toppings?"

"Pepperoni, pineapple."

"Just pepperoni."

The thin woman nodded, and disappeared back through the door, and she earned herself a displeased squint from the prisoner. Her mouth opened to speak, and Jasper was quick to cut her off. She was not about to get into an argument about pineapples.

"More about 8XS."

"Talked to herself a lot. Sometimes she chewed on her hands and drew weird things on the walls with blood. They put a muzzle on her for a while, like what you saw on her, but a little more simple. Sometimes she'd just sit on her cot and stare at me in the dark. Talked a lot about Holly. I think she's the warden?"

"You get used to weird things after a while."

The prisoner nodded crisply.

"What's your name?"

"You know it."

"Want to hear it from you. You're a criminal, but not a labeled specimen." Yet. Jasper couldn't say much for the future.

The prisoner hummed shortly, and sat up a little bit, leaning forward and resting her arms on her knees. "It's Lapis."

Jasper repeated her name, and nodded. All part of the verbal dance, and she suspected Lapis knew that to a degree.

 

Her radio clicked twice with static, and Jasper responded with a single click. The same thin officer stepped in through the door, deposited the pizza on the table in a box, and stepped back out wordlessly, though with a lingering glance. Jasper gestured to it with a tilt of her head and, slowly, Lapis stood and opened it.

She had to smile when the prisoner practically inhaled a piece, and went for a second.

 

"Where were you from? Before all this?"

"Earth," Lapis mumbled through a mouth full.

 

"I'm from Earth, too," Jasper informed, amicably, watching the prisoner's expression shift to something a little more friendly, more curious. Jasper glanced at the camera eyeing them on the other side of the room, and lowered her tone, standing from her seat. This set the prisoner back on guard, but Jasper simply wanted to stretch her sore legs.

"I'm going to be honest with you. The only reason you're on board here and not rotting in your cell is because you're the _sole_  survivor of your first transport, and the Authority of this station wants people who know their way around planet cracking, people with good heads on their shoulders, and I prefer working with people who don't worship chunks of rock. Reliable people."

Lapis snorted, in a vaguely cute way, leaning against the wall. "I'm reliable? You know interfering with planet cracking was part of the reason I was in there?"

"And you'd be smart to shut up about that."

"What if I don't want any part of this?"

Jasper drew her brows down, and leaned in. "Then you can kiss this opportunity good bye and crawl back into the dark depths of the hole I helped drag you out of."

Forgetting her meal, Lapis crossed her arms again, and sent her a fiercely defiant look. "None of this makes any sense."

"And it's not going to, because I don't have all the information, and it all barely makes sense to me in this chaos station. I'm _trying_  to get information from you, and piece things together. I only get so much information passed down to me from all of the glorified researchers on this chunk of grounded metal. You can walk around with more freedom than you've had in a long time and learn to take some orders, or you can leave it. If half the people I talked to gave me this much shit during recruitment, I would be down to three officers."

The prisoner contemplated this in silence, and Jasper let her, standing her ground with mounting impatience.

"Do I get my own quarters?"

"Not my call. You get a free medical examination. Maybe more pizza, and a complimentary tracking issuance. Maybe we'll have more time to talk later without being monitored."

"Fine."

The speed of the response threw Jasper off for a moment. Her hand stuttered as she reached for her belt, and clicked the radio to a different frequency. Jay stepped in through the opposing doors, and Jasper stepped back enough to keep them both in her line of sight.

"Terms agreed on. Take her to the hanger to get her out of the eye sore uniform. Make sure she showers."

"I'm right here."

"Make sure you **shower**."

\---

Lapis showered, and scrubbed herself raw until her tanned skin was more red than anything. It was a shame she couldn't scrub the memories away, or scrub herself into the next plane of existence. At least Jay kept her eyes to herself, and never spoke a word to her, no matter how long she stayed under the water, nor when she sat on the tiled flooring to rest her forehead against the wall and contemplate her place in the universe.

It was a lot to take in.

Though she might have suspected the Commander of holding back information, the woman had seemed worn to the brim and unorganized. Lapis was looking forward to a later conversation. She had expected the questioning to last longer. Perhaps she made it clear that she wasn't an omnipotent being with all the answers.

The warden was like to know far more. Lapis hoped she was questioned too.

Lapis also hoped that Sharky was in a fair physical if not mental state.

_They're under my skin_.

The statement had shaken her.

Once, her cell mate had awoken her in the middle of the night, speaking of dead people and raking her nails across her skin so many times it was raw, bleeding, and open. She hadn't seen Sharky for a week afterwards, when she had finally made enough of a clamor to get a guard into the hallway.

The woman seemed beyond help, whatever was wrong with her, but Lapis hoped she was getting help all the same, and not being cast aside. Prisons never had time to deal with such things, and as far as she understood, this was a research station. One of many popping up for various uncovered artifacts across this side of the galaxy.

Lapis had little information on that, too.

At least crying in the shower wasn't as messy.

She sniffed hard, and wiped at her sore eyes, and saw Jay's head twitch, as if to look back, but she never had, and Lapis liked her a little more for it.

When she was finished and suitably done with leaking eyes, Jay passed her a towel without so much as looking behind her. Jasper had never taken her eyes away from her their entire meeting, but she saw nothing more than exhaustion and wariness in her eyes.

It was so, so nice to be free of the grime, and it made her feel much more calm.

The next room they stepped into was suitably vacant. Jay rummaged through various colors of uniforms until she picked out a dark blue one, and handed it over, her eyes locked on the far, far side of the room. 

"That's uh... Too big. Is there one five sizes down?"

"Oh, uh, um, uh, yeah. Here." She searched through the pile again, making an attempt to keep them neat, and passed the requested size to Lapis.

A perfect fit, with patches of armor in various places and a signature... guard ranking? Lapis twisted her lips a little, but adjusted into it, feeling the spine-mounted display integrate into her nervous system. A twinge, a tingle, and the light blue of the bar showed against the wall she had her back to. A cheap, non-medically integrated display, but very effective and comfortable. Unprompted, she took boots from the lower level, and shoved them on. Undoubtedly, the floors were sanitized enough for her to go bare, but years of having worked on similar stations let her know it certainly wasn't going to fly, less so under these circumstances, and she could certainly go her first day without being screeched at.

Was she on a pay roll now? 

 

"What happened to Sharky?" She asked, when the silence reigned on too long, when her buzzing thoughts became too much.

Jay finally looked at her, a confused crinkle in her brow, and she gestured to be followed. "Who?"

"Uhm, 8XS."

"I'm not sure, I-"

"Do you know what's going on?"

Jay gave pause as they passed through a door, beeping with Jay's authorization code and 'shhh'ing closed behind them. As opposed to giving any sort of answer, she went silent, her throat bobbing, her posture going rigid.

Lapis repressed a sigh. Fine, no answers any time soon.

But - Jay's mouth was moving. Lapis squinted in an attempt to make out what she was saying, and then she saw Jay paused mid-gesture, and moved her lips to say something else.

Lapis had to play it in her mind over and over again. What had Jay said?

Lapis mustered a silent "what", and then she was staring up at the ceiling, and then looking into darkness.

_The air burned less here, but it was still just as hot when she sucked in a breath. The far oasis glimmered darkly through the drooping ferns, languid and undisturbed. She broke open a spidery, withered pod and watched silver seeds spill out over the dark sand like dappled stars and sapphires. Gradually, her eyes adjusted to the crimson half-light pulsing from the massive red star in the sky. The mountains remained, jagged broken gears of ancient machinery like black teeth against the skyline. Turning around, Lapis glimpsed the shape of_ something _, standing deep in the purple sands, its curved form like twisted horns. The sight of it sent a sharp, unbearable pain into her stomach, up through her chest, and when she parted her lips black tendrils slipped free from her body, covering her eyes, her ears._  
  
She sat up, and screamed. Compared to the damning silence, it pierced her own ears, and she sat there panting against white sheets stained with sweat. The air that passed into her lungs _burned_ , and she clutched her throat, shaking.

She caught eyes with a young nurse on standby, gawking openly at her with a holopad at the ready, and could not get a word in before the woman rushed out, as if the room were on fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seriously appreciate the support on this!


	7. Hydroponics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lapis snoops and Peridot gets a miniature intervention.

**T** _hey're coming._

The voice jolted her out of a dark and dreamless slumber. The urgency of it boiled panic in her chest and she sat up, shaking.

"Lights on, dim."

The darkness faded gradually until her surroundings were clear to her, without the piercing pervasiveness of bright lights. Peridot rubbed at one eye and then the other, searching her desk for her specs and adjusting them onto the bridge of her nose.

**D** _on't take the pill_.

It was back, Peridot thought in displeasure, scooting off the edge of the cot, and squinting at the row of medications. Light in the morning, dark in the evening. One voice turned into many as she unscrewed the lid, and popped a pill. The voices faded away almost immediately, as did the immense migraine-like pressure in her head, and she sighed in relief. It was signed under Dr. Maheswaran's name; she would have to go thank her later.

She had almost forgotten the events of yesterday, and as the memories came back, she felt sick, and her hands began to shake again.

In spite of Jasper having been the one to turn her in, Peridot found herself wandering over to her console, flicking it on, and tapping on the Commander's face. A connection line was immediately established over a private server, proxied by yours truly, and after five idle minutes, a live view of Jasper's face became available.

Worried, and slightly enraged.

Peridot shrank from the view, and hardly managed to get a word in.

"You've been in your  _room_? Stars... Get down to the lower bridge. Third bunker. You are in so much fucking trouble-"

"You're not my manager," Peridot grunted firmly, folding her arms.

"And thankfully, I haven't told your manager shit. You're lucky Garnet came to me first, short stack. Get down here,  _now_."

Jasper cut the connection, and Peridot groaned loudly into her hands. The underlying threat remained. Either she get down there as fast as her short stack legs could carry her, or her manager  _would_  be hearing about it.

Armed with the confidence that the voices were kept at bay, Peridot stepped into the uniform chamber, and held out her arms as the chamber uploaded authorization codes into her uniform's schematics and rechecked her health core. Strangely, it had dropped down into a yellow coloration. She felt fine. A glitch emulated through her stress? The core was reinvigorated back up to its sea blue status, and she stepped out, making sure to encrypt her door code as she left.

She avoided as many eyes as she could by taking the back floors, and using executive elevators. A simple risk, but one that nagged her paranoia. She was down to the lower decks in record time, and fast-walking through the halls, pretending to be invigoratingly involved in the schematics of the flooring. A heavy part of her job was, after all, tech repairs.

Standing in front of the designated door that her interface led her to, she felt her heart speed, and hesitated. She didn't like feeling trapped. She didn't like that she had anything to do with anything on this forsaken ship that wasn't in line with her duties and the more she thought on the unfair circumstances, the more riled she became.

The doors slid open, and she practically had a heart attack.

The vacant stare of Garnet met her, and Peridot fumbled with her words, managing only to make odd noises before Garnet reached out, secured a grip on her suit, and tugged her inside with a fist-full of uniform.

As far as she could see, just Jasper and Garnet. Thank the stars.

Amethyst peeped out from behind an assortment of lockers, took a moment of pause, and hauled herself across the deck towards Peridot, barreling into her, and sending them both sprawling to the ground.

At least today favored her somewhat. Amethyst broke through tension like a hot blade to warm butter. Peridot also had no doubts that Amethyst could to the same to her spine.

She wheezed heavily as the female crushed her in a hug, kicking her legs a little and puffing outward.

As the pressure was relieved a little, Peridot took a look around the small bay area. Blue prints of the ship were strewn up over a light board with various sketchings around it. Taking a breath, Peridot expected Pearl had been somewhere in the vicinity; her perfume was unmistakably pleasant.

"Got the docs off your back," Jasper began, her arms folded tightly, looking no more rested than days prior. "Convinced them your case was an isolated one out of stress and exhaustion, which is half of this damn ship. And hell, since you didn't hurt anyone, and they've got bigger priorities, you're off the hook. You're fuckin'  _welcome_."

"Thank you." She responded, not without kindness, as Amethyst hauled her to her feet.

"Aaaas your friends, though, we want to know what's going on, girl," Amethyst gave her shoulder pads a pat, and furrowed her brows, and Peridot felt the recesses of her chest  _ache_.

Was honesty a trap here?

Garnet must have red her expression. She leaned back against a wall, folded her arms, and seemed lax. "We just want to know how to help you. The board leaders aren't concerned with what's going on in the station. Apart from the incident on the prison ship that just arrived. Even that was given a pass. Of sorts."

"Things aren't going well. With anyone," Jasper had added, her eyes cast to the floor. "Half the population is going nuts, half the population is avoiding that half like the plague. Screaming nightmares, complete unrest. Found out some of your tech buddies are even funneling more sleep additives into rooms. Guess it isn't helping. Also got a new recruit."

Garnet reached over, and Jasper responded with a fist bump.

"She's from the prison ship, though. Sole survivor of the Glacier transport. Took a shower, then passed out bloody. Scared Jay straight into paying attention to what's going on."

Garnet hummed a short note of disapproval.

"What do you want me to tell you?" Peridot rubbed at her temples, pacing forward into the center of the room.

"I want to know what the hell went on down there. You had your own screaming fit. You were so drenched in sweat your temperature regulations were faulty. You look like you snorted twenty pounds of Red Sand."

"I'm not on Red Sand!"

"Didn't say that. Just tell me what the hell went on. Talking to yourself? Looking like you were about to rail on me? I was actually paranoid to be sitting in front of you just piloting."

"I don't know, okay? I don't know... Are you going to shove me back into the medical bay if I start talking about voices?"

Jasper and Garnet exchanged a look, and then both shrugged their shoulders. "Pearl admitted to the same thing."

This both relaxed and puzzled her greatly. Pearl experienced the same thing, despite having confronted her the night before? Was it after that? She rubbed her palm along her jaw, and then took a seat. Amethyst eyed her intensely.

"This is going to sound stupid. But I swear I haven't heard anything since this morning. After I took the pills I was prescribed. There were just so many voices. And then they all came together, and started talking about this thing called Convergence. How it had a big secret it needed to tell me, and it was actually really polite, asking to come into the sub. It was just so confusing, and jumping everywhere. It told me we needed to put it back, whatever it was. That I needed to resist something. And then it told me that I needed to warn everyone about the Convergence, how all organic matter was going to unite and that self identity was going to be gone. And I saw it too, outside the bathyscaphe. It looked like a fish at first. And I almost drowned, because it told me to open the hatch, but you were already connected, so the water didn't get in."

She took a long breath, and held her head in her hands for a moment, focusing hard on what she could remember. She had tried to suppress most of it.

"And then the thing got upset talking about it, and exploded, and covered everything in guts and blood and that's when you told me to calm down. How the  _fuck_  could I calm down after that? But then I had a dream, and it was telling me to close a door. But the door didn't have a door, it was just a dark entrance. And before I could even try to close it, it told me that it was too late and that I needed to finish what I started, but it wouldn't tell me what I started, and then the same creature that was talking to me came out of the doorway and stabbed me. And  **you**  weren't there."

She shot Jasper an angry, unjustified look, and then schooled her expression, looking down into her sweating palms.

"And then a doctor who wasn't Maheswaran told me I could take an easy way out, and gave me a couple of medications that were signed by Maheswaran, and told me when to take them. The voice told me not to take them this morning, but I did, and now it's quiet."

She hadn't realized it until a small spatter fell onto her leg, and she sniffed, wiping her eyes. 

Amethyst had drawn closer, and settled a hand onto her shoulder. It was comforting, but she wanted to leave, until she was picked up from her seat and enclosed in muscular arms, crushed tightly into a pillowy chest where she rested her face, and sniffed again.

"That's not exactly like Pearl, but it sounds similar." She heard Garnet say, and with a couple more sniffs she peeked open an eye to peer at the officer.

"Convergence of  _what_  organic matter though? Like, plants?" Amethyst had looked more grave than Peridot ever recalled seeing her.

"Don't think so." Jasper's deep voice roiled from her chest, and Peridot pressed her cheek to where her heart was. Too long without affection. "With both of their descriptions... Think organic matter would involve people. But shit, this is too much to take in. Don't even know  _why_  it's happening. But if they're experiencing similar things."

She shared a look with Garnet, and cut herself off with a grunt as Pearl rounded the corner with a box in her arms.

Jasper went to let her go until she clung firmly to her RIG suit, and with a repressed sigh, Jasper wrapped her arms back around her, squishing her, and in spite of the sickness in her stomach and the tension in her chest, Peridot snorted a chuckle. So warm.

"I don't have much time. Here's everything I could compile."

Garnet had stepped over to her, relieving her shaking arms of the box's weight, murmuring appreciations. Pearl caught eyes with Peridot, and offered a smile.

Stars, she looked utterly exhausted, and ready to fall apart. Peridot kicked the side of Jasper's thigh with her heel, and gestured to Pearl, and the behemoth of a woman sighed, trudging towards Pearl who looked to them with curiosity, and then slight horror.

"No, no, no, Jasper I'm- oofugh."

Jasper crushed Pearl into her side, and patted her affectionately. Victory. And then Garnet was hugging, and then Amethyst from the side. Pearl closed her eyes, and went slack for a moment, mumbling incoherently.

"Take a rest, Pearl," Garnet advised. "I'll adjust your time schedule."

Pearl pulled away long enough to muster an objection. "You could get in big trouble for that."

"And  _they_  could get in big trouble for having you continue through a thirty-five hour cycle."

Peridot was let down as Pearl fell away and stumbled a little, being led towards a cot to the side. The moment she seemed to hit it, she was out, like a light, and Amethyst took her jacket off to cover her.

"What's in the box?" Peridot approached it, peering over the edge into countless files as Garnet lowered the box to her height.

"Pearl's been looking into the matter herself, based off of the images she's been getting in her... hallucinations. Dreams. Whatever stuck. A lot of these files are hush-hush, so let's keep it that way."

"Hush-hush being decommission and serious prison time," Jasper informed, taking an extra long look at Amethyst.

"I've seen these." Peridot shifted through a few of the file names. Archaic, but certain things were not entirely kept off paper, especially when technology still had its failures and faults. Paper was saved for the most important articles. Peridot hadn't touched paper in so long it felt odd. Most of her books were over technical platforms. One image stuck out in particular to her, and she froze as her fingers grazed it.

**P** _ick it up. Relish your errors_.

\---

Her heart monitor was going wild, and the beeping served to make Lapis utterly irate. She reached over, and unplugged it, blessed with silence in the aftermath of chaos, and she finally took a long, slow breath. She laid back on the pillowy surface of the hospital bed, and almost wanted to close her eyes again. Every time she did, the image remained. The thorned, curled, menacing structure with endless symbols ebbing through its form like the flow of blood. The dirty taste of the air seemed to still be on her tongue.

Water, please, water.

Lapis threw her gaze across the room, finding it mostly barren.

There was the taste of copper in her mouth as well.

She tried to swallow, and got the sensation of glass pouring down her throat.

The doors slid open, and the same little nurse that had ran out entered with another, whose hair was drawn over her eyes.

"She  _screamed_  at me!"

Lapis looked her over, and decided that she wasn't fond of her. The quiet one with the messy hair, she liked. A soft vibe ebbed from her.

"It was a dream."

"And you  _screamed_  at me." The yellow uniformed nurse settled her hands on her sides, and seemed to puff.

"Uh... Sorry. Water?"

A water bottle was thrown at her, and she almost slipped up catching it.

"Reflexes are fine," the other nurse stated, scribbling something down on a one-way holopad.

Yellow, Lapis dubbed her, pinched the bridge of her nose and clenched her eyes closed. She had to wonder what a yellow uniform signified. The other was dressed in blue, much like herself. Looking at it made Lapis tired again. She unscrewed the bottle with weakened, strained muscles, and downed half of it.

"It says on your profile you had passed out after throwing up blood. There were no cameras in the vicinity. Do you remember anything? Did the guard cause you any harm?" Blue had asked, flicking along the holopad.

"No! No... She was really nice. I don't really know what went on."

Yellow waltzed over, eyeing her as she plugged the heart monitoring system back in.

"Stress ulcers? I've been thrown around a lot lately, and uh, haven't really been eating too well."

"Right, you came off the civilian ship. Not your best first day on the job. What system did you come from?"

Lapis squinted, as if attempting to see through the holopad, and stalled. Had Jasper changed her file? It would have been nice to know, so she could follow the story. Instead, she shrugged, and listened as the monitor gradually slowed in pace as she calmed. "My family and I moved around systems."

Blue hummed, and nodded, and Yellow bickered quietly to her before raising her obnoxious tone.

"Your vitals check out fine, now, and a scan didn't show anything. No one advised a decommission, and you're re-hydrated through the vials. So you're free to go whenever-"

"Now." Lapis tugged on a brace, and then pulled at the cord attached to the medical display on her spine. 

Yellow rushed over to bat her hands away, and to aid her systematically. "Exit status is green. Patient timed extraction at 1542 hours."

Blue blipped her fingers around the screen again, and the sliding doors opened.

Lapis rubbed a hand at the back of her sore neck, and slid from the bed, wobbling a moment, and finding herself momentarily grateful that Yellow steadied her, even if displeasure was written all over her face.

Her vision pulsed and stretched, but she'd be damned if she were to stay there any longer. She moved slowly towards the exit as Yellow walked her like a toddler before letting her go. She snatched a look at the hologram as she passed Blue, and rolled her eyes. Doodles lined an entire page of vague information. Totally professional.

"Have your Commander assign you a room," Yellow had called, before she stepped far out enough that the doors slid shut behind her, and she slouched irritably. The remnants of her dream played in her mind, and all over again, she felt hot sand beneath her bare feet and the weight of a red sun against her shimmering skin. Screams of the dying buzzed in her ears. Was this a sickness brought on by her bunk mate? After so long of watching tormented dementia play out over the faces of her peers, why  _now_? She had always been seemingly immune to whatever was passing around.

Again, she remembered her screaming bunk mate and the splatters of blood and the snapping of teeth.

Lapis shouldered her way into the nearest restroom, her whole trip down the hallway a blur, and shoved her face beneath a faucet, cold water spraying her in the face and soaking part of her hair and uniform.

A door slammed somewhere to her left, and when she looked up into a mirror, another woman was staring at her, owl-eyed.

"Woah... You know there's showers, right?"

Lapis put her face back under the water until the other had sanitized her hands and left, and then she reeled up, blinking away the water, and looking into her tired, shadowed eyes. Best leave before medical staff was called again.

The hallways were a maze without any kind of escort. It took her fifteen minutes before she realized her suit was equipped with holographic maps and private light trails to whatever destination she wanted to punch in. The cafeteria was tempting, but until she had actual credits, complementary coffee was all that was likely available, and only truly desperate employees attempted to drain that garbage into their bodies. 

If she wanted to lie to herself, she would have said she was not tempted.

Several people blipped up on the map, classified by letters and numbers, much like the prisoners aboard the ship. She  _supposed_  it was an easier catalog system, rather than lengthy last names. The issue was recognizing Jasper, if she were even listed. The numbers shown were certainly not the whole station, and her own number was missing. She was simply a little blue dot traversing the level.

More concentrated on the map before her eyes, she jumped when a door slid open in front of her, flanked by two other guards, whose rank patches were identical. They showed visible surprise, and exchanged glances before one slid in front of the door's opening.

"Where are you going, grunt? Where'd you get clearance for this sector?"

"Jasper, looking for her."

The guards exchanged glances again, one folding her arms, murmuring in a harsh language she didn't understand.

"Jasper is out of office. Get back to your Sarg."

Though an argument boiled in her chest, Lapis had not the slightest idea what lie beyond the door, aside from a few terminals visible past the guard's shoulder. She turned on her heel, and marched the opposite direction.

Squinting at the three-dimensional map again, Lapis went through her options.

Bridge, with a Captain's nest, external comms, and the atrium. Hydroponics. She doubted Jasper would be mulling around with horticulturalists and carrots. An engineering deck, tram station, ore storage, decontamination chamber, medical. She had to have come from the intensive care unit, or diagnostics. Mining deck, crew deck, a computer core for the  _Homeworld's_  central processing. Flight deck.

Lapis rubbed her aching temples. Too many places for Jasper to be, and too little time. Like finding a buff needle in a haystack. Maybe if she screamed like a pterodactyl, someone would come running.

"Stop  **SHOUTING**!" 

Lapis winced, the harsh voice carrying down the winding corridor. She certainly knew it. And she certainly thought the prison ship would have disconnected by now. She derailed to the closest door, which thankfully opened, and then she slipped inside just in time to hear the harsh clutter of boots down the hallway.

The door closed, and she was left in darkness. A little light on her right shoulder flickered on immediately, illuminating the small storage room. Basic janitorial supplies. As soon as the boots on the other side of the door faded away, Lapis turned to leave, until a glow by one of the boxes caught her attention.

A data pad. She would have left it, had the word  **Unitologist**  not showed vibrantly in the subject line.

As much as she hated them, it made her significantly more interested in checking it out.

Lapis crossed the small expanse, and picked it up. Not even finger print locked.

An email? She hesitated to poke the subject line. It would show it had been read. Lapis reached into her pocket to slip a glove on, at least concealing her finger prints, and tapped the screen, opening the message.

 

_Harmon, I don't know what the hell your problem is._  
  
_Since when have you ever bothered with them? What did they offer your slick ass a pay raise? It's bullshit, and you're bullshit, and this whole operation is bullshit. Why can't we go back to our colony? You're getting in way over your head, and your brother thinks so too. I don't care what kind of relationship you two have but you know he's right. Somewhere in your empty fucking head you know he's right, you know this is wrong. The pay isn't worth it anymore. Harmon they threw someone out an air lock! Called a simple comment blasphemy!_   


 

Lapis had to snort. Suddenly paranoid, she threw a look over her shoulder into the darkness, and then squinted her eyes and scrolled down. She needed to meet this man. Clearly, they could have a lot to talk about.

 

 

_They're coming for me any day. I know it. I'm starting to see more and more out of the corner of my eye. The Authority has this entire fucking station filled with the fuckers. And now you're one of them. You know what? Don't message me back. Consider this a farewell. You god damn rock worshipper._   


 

There was no name at the end to signal who the sender was, and Lapis assumed he had to have been on another vessel, given the code of the email. Pity. 

"Lapis!"

The sudden voice almost made her drop the tablet, and she yelped, slamming the PDA back down onto the shelf with a clang. It came from her suit's earpiece.

She raised her shaking hand to activate it, turning to pass back through the door that yawned open for her, peeking down the hallway, and then resuming her direction, heart pounding.

"Uh, uh, yeah?"

"Where are you?"

Her chest settled once the voice was recognized. Finally, Jasper. Lapis checked her hologram and took careful note of the callcode for future reference.

"On the medical deck."

"Medical deck?"

"I had a small pass out episode, I guess." She moved to the side of the hallway, making room for two guards walking side by side, hardly paying her mind. "I'm fine now. I've been trying to find you."

"Come up to the Hydroponics, now. I assigned you access."

Lapis wanted to hit her head against a wall. "You  _are_  in hydroponics? Why are  _you_  in hydroponics?"

"Picking corn, asshole. Get up here."

Jasper cut the connection before she could respond, and Lapis sighed deeply. Even that did not relieve the weight from her chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry these are short, life is stressful. I might start a new project. Hit me up with suggestions. I figure a small update is still an update.


	8. Unreality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains brief sexual content. This chapter was stress written. And for those curious, Jasper is Native. Thank you for the continued support.

Peridot stood over a cliff edge, looking down into an abyss of a black, ink-like ocean. She had followed a river of similar color, the tar waters churning wildly and that sickly sweet copper smell was  **everywhere**.

The vast, endless dark ocean seemed to bubble, a cacophony of screaming, hazy voices impounding her sensitive ears ceaselessly, and no amount of running helped her escape them. No single human, no  _living thing_  could make such horrendous guttural noises; a mixture of shrieks and laughter and the sickening crunch of what, for some reason, she instinctively identified as  _bone_. Something scrunched and slurped and groaned to her right and, freezing, a hot breeze on her sweltering skin, Peridot looked, and was met with a large fleshy hole in the ground beside her, slowly sinking in on itself. Several were appearing across the land, those thick spidery vein-like trees disappearing as the holes swallowed them down, and as she felt her feet shift, she knew she was next.

With nowhere else to go, Peridot waded madly into that dark abyss, looking down at herself as she waded, realizing that her suit revealed a coagulated crimson, and she had to stop to empty the contents of her barren stomach, heaving into the waters.

A face flowed out from the ocean, shriveled, missing part of its face, laughing manically. She shrieked, almost falling back into the liquid, before another head bumped her from behind so forcefully that it righted her. Its face slid against the back of her uniform, and she felt its flesh give way against the fabric. That one was wailing so loud her ears rung.

Many different heads, missing various different parts, all various ages and sizes and states of decay, all floated up towards that dark foreboding sky that loomed heavy above, and it was such a profoundly staggering event that the technician found herself speechless, unmoving until it was too late.

She went to lift her leg, to move back away from an elderly man's decrepit head when she realized that was caught, and a deep sense of horror grasped her. Against better judgement, she thrashed, and tried harder to pull her feet out, sucking herself down deeper into the sands, into the tar waters, and she began to hyperventilate the harder she struggled; enlisting the help of her hands to try and pull herself out when what  _felt_  like a pair of hands began to pull her down further and she howled out in terror.

In seconds, she was brought down beneath the surface, body slipping into those sands, first encased by that overwhelming decay, and then swallowed up by the ground beneath.

In those murky depths, she struggled for air, chest constricted, blinded, writhing and grasping for a surface that was far, far above her, and all of those screaming, tormented, demented voices filled ears all at once.

**Y** _our reckoning will come, and the next Moon will be born. Nameless, erased, converged into one, onto the next._

 

\---

 

" _Peridot!_ "

She jerked upwards, swiping her arm out, a strangled whimper clutching her throat. She was breathing like she had sprinted a marathon, the sheets around her drenched in sweat, her body excruciatingly  _hot_  to the touch. She felt her face, looked at her hands, and then looked to the person standing beside her.

Jasper, looking neither angry nor impatient, but exhausted and concerned. 

" _Hey_ ," the security chief spoke, in a tone that was so tender, it made Peridot's bottom lip quiver, accompanied by a sniff, and then she pressed her lips tight, and the tears came.

Jasper looked deeply uncomfortable, but she had stooped to the bedside, and Peridot rolled over to meet her, shoving her face into the crook of the Officer's neck, and her body wracking in a short sob. Jasper held her closer, saying nothing, stroking a hand through the other's hair until she was a mess of trembles and hiccups.

And  _snot_. 

But Jasper had been due for a shower, anyhow.

It was not what she had intended to walk into. She had almost forgotten Peridot gave her security clearance 'for emergencies' and she then found herself thankful when initially bringing her into the room.

Two days prior, she had been told Peridot touched one of the minerals recovered from the planet that headquarters was orbiting, and had promptly passed out. Fed up with the medical wing, Jasper easily decided to cart her back to her room and keep an eye on her. The colorful bar on Peridot's back shifted from yellow to green and back again throughout the days, but so long as it stayed above that dark orange to red zone, Jasper retained her promise.

No more MedBay.

The accusation that she had not  _been there_  bit her bone-deep in the waking realization that she had, indeed, neglected Peridot in favor of pouring her stresses into her job, as she was oft found to do. And yet she secondly agonized that the other was a  _grown woman_ , even if she was periodically found to be responsible for keeping unconventional journals and talking to...  _snakes_.

Jasper held her close, squished her cheek against the other's head, and tried her best not to feel awkward. Though the other was hot, Jasper found comfort in it. Another long period without sleep.

"Lemme lie beside you." A request, they both knew, even if Jasper seemed to order it.

Sniffing heavily, Peridot wiped her eyes as she pulled away, scooting back towards the wall that the bed rested against, and kicking her boots off, Jasper climbed up beside her. Peridot shuffled in closely and comfortably. She lied on a bicep of Jasper's outstretched arm, looking more tired than Jasper ever recalled seeing her. Peridot was  _sweaty_ , but her uniform worked quickly to control her body temperature to the proper setting and Jasper ran soothing fingers along the Technician's sides and back, earning a periodic shudder now and then.

"Okay now?"

"Give me a minute," Peridot responded, sniffling and fraught.

So Jasper lied there in silence, listening to her terse breathing, watching her health identification bar slip down a little, the green drowning into yellow. Tense, Jasper leaned over to deliver a small kiss to the other's cheek, her breath hitching and her vitals spiraling back into green.

  
"We said we weren't doing that anymore," Peridot breathed, though she seemed to have calmed down monumentally, staring emptily at the wall in front of them.

"This can mark an exception."

"You'll get me hooked again."

Jasper went silent at that, mulling it, and declining to reply.

But Peridot forced her into  _some_  amount of a reply by turning to face her, face wiped dry as her hands reached and gripped at Jasper's mane, tugging her down close. The Technician ghosted a breath across her lips, an opportunity to pull away before connecting them together, and Jasper seemed to melt. When she pulled away, she was breathy, looking into Jasper's eyes with a look Jasper herself had difficulty in deciphering. 

"Convergence."

"What?"

"The dream I had. Jasper, the dreams  _are_  talking about organic life."

Nice way to end a kiss, Jasper thought, far too curious about the dream experienced than the odd twist of conversation. She preferred her lapse to shrivel away into nothingness beneath their conversation, and seemed to wordlessly get her way. With much relief, as nice as it had been. Running low on sleep was not new to her. But as the week crawled into the second, her judgement became worse, as did her thought process, and consequentially, emotions. Jasper propped herself up a little to avoid the temptation of sleep, cheek resting in her palm.

"Organic life is going to converge. Know how?"

"No," she whispered, struggling to recall the events. "So many rotting heads. I could feel them. The world seemed to melt away into darkness. Hard to breathe. Said something about a moon."

"A  **moon**?"

"Jasper, I don't want to talk about this right now."

Jasper followed the path of the other's eyes and where they focused back on her lips, so she cocked her head, attempting to establish eye contact. "You'll forget. Record it in a data log then." 

"I just want a shower," she huffs, tired and defeated, and Jasper nods her head.  

"We can go to my room."

 

* * *

Peridot has always liked Jasper's room. It was still a square of hidden things such as a washer and dryer embedded into a wall; a press of a button was all that was necessary to pop either open. Where Peridot's bunk was fixed, Jasper's came out of the wall as well. Due to her military status and ranking, Jasper was rewarded with a small private shower with her restroom accommodations. It was much better than sharing a shower room with others. Peridot was self conscious enough.

Peridot liked how the Chief's room smelled. Peridot kept hers neat and sterilized. Jasper was fond of an array of different scents from flowers to incense and oils.

The sound of the water turning on jolted her from her thoughts. 

  
"Temperature's functional. Get in."

A brief argument ended in Jasper climbing in with her, watching heated water cascade down the other's stressed, weary, thin body. 

  
Peridot looked abashed, if not ashamed. Whether by their current circumstances, or the dream, Jasper did not want to know, or care, for the duration of the shower. Her job put her under enough stress to crack the best. For the fifteen minutes wasted away, lulling under the hot water, scrubbing one another, she did not want to care. More soldier than civilian, a shared shower did not phase her  _too_  much. Better with someone she actually knew.

She radiated confidence where Peridot did not. Unbothered, she roamed her hands across the expanse of pale, nigh flawless skin, working the tension from her shoulders, knowing it would come back on her but  _hell_. The station was fraying apart. Jasper basked in granting affection. When decidedly finished, she reached behind them to turn the water off, and Peridot wordlessly stepped out, only to be immediately and pleasantly wrapped in a towel far too large and far too comfortable. She felt Jasper step past her, out into the room, and Peridot's hope for cuddling dropped when Jasper slipped into a standard Resource Integration Gear suit. Different, considering her usual taste for the advanced soldier RIG or the Security RIG.

Jasper unclipped the chest shield, bits of armor, and the slot for a holographic map display, and cast them all onto a table, flopping into her cot without another word.

Perhaps the other had forgotten  _Peridot's_  lack of clean clothing. Peridot mussed her dark hair into floof and misdirection, and left it that way as she sidled into Jasper's bed, leaning against Jasper's broad, warm back, and then she is jolting awake. The lights were dimmed due to inactivity, but as soon as they register Peridot stir, they gradually lightened, and Peridot had to reach for the manual switch to keep the lights dim, scooting back down into her comfortable position.

At the edge of the small cot, surely, but Peridot took comfort in the fact that if she went down, Jasper was most likely coming over the edge with her.

She listened to the soldier's easy breathing for a time, no longer faced against her back Jasper bared herself by lying on said back, her expression of peace and the spinal-integrated shirt riding up to reveal a chiseled abdomen of muscle. Peridot found that her eyes loved to rest there, following the slightest happy trail down into the name brand boxer top that peeked past Jasper's belted cargo pants.

With idleness, Peridot reached to touch that fiery, scar-ridden skin. Scars here, a tiger-like line of vitiligo there. She traced blotchy edges and scarred, raised skin, those long lines of paleness, a few red and irritated-looking, even after a year since they were received. 

Security was made fun of. But in the end, they were necessary, and every bloody beating and fight Jasper tangled herself in was a solid testament. 

When Peridot let her soaking gaze drag upwards, she was met with amber flecked in forged gold, and Peridot jerked her hand back, as if she had been shocked. The lazy gaze smoldered, and Jasper lazily planted Peridot's hand back where it had been. There, it stalled, unsure.

"Why did we stop this?" She whispers, before thinking better of it.

"Work." Jasper grunted, simple and precise.

It was never a satisfying answer to the Technician. But she refused to press Jasper onwards. The stress of her job was insurmountable in these times.

Much to her surprise, Jasper shifted her closer, pulled her in, and hot breath spilled across her lips.

Peridot took a moment to relish it, to bask in her solid presence. The only stable factor in her life at the moment, despite how contradictorily chaotic whatever relation they had was. Friends? Good friends? Friends with benefits? No, that was long lost on a regulated scale.

  
As much as Peridot liked labels, this could go without one. She preferred this without a label. Casual and mindless and simply just what she needed as a touch starved technician thrown into borderline illegal amounts of work. Beyond the level of stress she was experiencing as of late. Things were unsavory at best, but silent. She relished in this silence, in the warm body beside her who did nothing but silently encourage her touch.

_Encouraged_. As she realized it, her heart sped. She thought, for several moments, about indulging in it. Perhaps her chances were running out, but the remnants of  _the dream_  were doing nothing for her libido. As opposed to dipping for the invitingly warm breath, Peridot ran her fingers along Jasper's exposed abdominals, knowing she enjoyed feather touches and grooming far more than anything else. Thoughtlessly she picked at the band of the exposed boxers, slipping into a mode of vacantly until a shuddered breath disturbed her.

She refrained from  _looking_  at the other, but her tone was clear, if not expressively  _tired_. Something occurs to her, and she furrows her brows.

"Jasp?"

"Mm."

"Are  **you**  okay?"

She felt Jasper shrug, vaguely, which was no consolation. Taking a peek up, Jasper's head was tilted back, eyes closed, body lax. A big, lazy tiger.

Perhaps her worries were misdirected, but the lack of effects on Jasper were very puzzling to her.

"I mean have you been experiencing anything? Like any-" She yiped, loud and indignant, swatting away at the hand that had pinched the back of her thigh.

In retaliation, Jasper squished her close, a clear frown on her expression though her eyes remained closed. " _Don't_  start with that. I have a job to do. No, there's nothing wrong."

"I doubt it." She responded, slight and quiet, and the tight crush loosened into a close hold. A comfortable, close hold that immediately had Peridot in a mode of forgiveness.

Another hand snaked towards her, tugging at the loose folds of her towel and without a beat missed, Peridot allows it, her hands unsteady as cool, circulated air ran bumps along her skin.

Thoroughly distracted by the soft, light brushes of the other's hands, she hadn't noticed the intense gaze scrolling down her form, taking in every detail, a glint of warm recollection expressed. It made Peridot's face explode with heat and fluster.  _Too many mixed messages_. But she knew, with Jasper, that actions spoke louder than her personal word.

The Officer's touch roamed lightly, eliciting and relishing the shivers gained, stroking along her thighs and rear until she heard the technician's hitch of breath. Taking in her own puff of air, Jasper sat up attentively, parting her thighs with an unspoken invitation  that the technician had little problem in understanding. A part of Jasper almost hesitated; lust drowning the complications of the situation. Her mortal embrace became her downfall.

Peridot pulled her in by her hair with greedy hands as she mounted her thigh, her own kiss hesitant, misguided until Jasper encouraged her, kneading at her hips, and bumping her leg upwards.

As the other adjusted against Jasper, she departed, and gnawed kisses along the woman's jaw, down her throat, unhurried and sluggish. She heard, and felt, Peridot keen, half-whispered words distractedly straying past her lips. "Jasp-  _oh_ , wow, you- hhn... don't need to." Her words seemed to die as Jasper pressed kisses along her pulse and brushed the pad of her thumb across a nipple. She was rewarded with a twitch and a sharp breath. So sensitive.

Shifting, Peridot's thigh brushed against the other's buckle, and she focused her hands on being rid of it. It lessened the worries of her frantic mind when Jasper hitched her hips in immediate compliance. Unbearably distracting, Jasper continued to assault her neck, lingering at her chest where her heart beat furiously, paying close attention to lovely spots even Peridot had forgotten of. She plunged her fingers back into the other's mane, tugging her head back demandingly, only to be met with smugness and a quirk of a brow.

"This isn't fair," the technician accused, with odd clarity, tugging at the other's shirt. 

In the low light, she could see Jasper smirk, and part her lips to speak. Her words came out jagged, glitched, incoherent, and Peridot was taken aback, jerking her hand away from the soldier, earning her a perplexed look.

A tense silence grew between them before Jasper spoke again. Her words were deep, molten, and laden with indescribable apathy. Demonic, she felt, would have been the best way to describe it, and the world seemed to slow around her. Her heart picked up, and Peridot snapped away, as if the other sparked her, cold dread returning. She tried to remember her awakening. Was this a dream? An illusion? She tried to process the situation. The more Jasper spoke, the more distraught she grew. Trembling, she looked around the room with frantic eyes, counting her fingers, staggering over the edge when the other sat up and went for her. She landed on her back, and then sunk into an abyss, surrounded by screaming.


End file.
